Skellefteå has wooden schools, bridges, even car parks. And now it has one of the world’s tallest wooden buildings. We visit Sweden to see what a climate-conscious future looks like.
Skellefteå runs on 100% renewable energy from hydropower and wind, and recycles 120,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year, with excess heat from the process fed back into the city-wide heating system. And now, nosing 20 storeys above the low-rise skyline, Skellefteå has a fitting monument to its carbon-cutting credentials. The Sara Cultural Centre and its towering Wood Hotel stand as beacons of what it is possible to do with timber – and store about 9,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere in the process.
“We wanted the building to be legible,” says Oskar Norelius of White Arkitekter, the biggest architecture practice in Scandinavia, with years of experience building in wood, “so people can see how it goes together.” Accordingly, thin steel rods form a cat’s cradle of bracings in the trusses above the main open level of the cultural centre, strung between chunky blocks of wood. The main auditorium, with seating for 1,200, is a tour de force of timber, with vast glulam beams leaping across the ceiling and faceted wooden wedges acting as acoustic diffusers around the walls...
