Modern timber buildings can be cheap, green and fireproof.There is a global race to build the tallest wooden skyscraper. The record was held by Mjostarnet, an 85-metre tower on the shore of Lake Mjosa in Norway, which hosts flats, a hotel and a swimming pool—until Ascent, an 87-metre structure, was completed in Wisconsin in July 2022. And it will be put in the shade in turn by other buildings: a 90 metre tower is planned for Ontario, and a 100 metre one for Switzerland. (By way of comparison, St Paul’s cathedral in London is 110 metres tall.)

A Swedish firm announced it was going for a different sort of record. It unveiled plans to build what could be the world’s biggest wooden city. Stockholm Wood City will be built in Sickla, an area in the south of the Swedish capital. Construction on the 250,000 square-metre site will begin in 2025. When complete, ten years later, it will contain 2,000 homes and 7,000 offices, along with restaurants and shops. The 12bn-krona ($1.4bn) project is led by Atrium Ljungberg, a Swedish urban development company...

The Economist: Sweden wants to build an entire city from wood