Tour wooden architecture: a Parisian wooden tower and more

When you think of Paris, cream-colored limestone is more likely to come to mind than wooden architecture. But a new 50m-tall apartment building could start a trend. It is called “Wood Up” and is one of the first wooden towers to grace the European skyline. The project was designed by the French architectural firm LAN (Lan Architecture Network), led by Benoît Jallon and Umberto Napolitano, and developed by REI Habitat, a company specializing in wood.

Wooden architecture sets the trend in Paris

(Image credit: Charly Broyez)

Wood Up is located on the Seine between Paris and the suburb of Ivry, in a remote but rapidly developing corner of the 13th arrondissement. A boxy structure with large windows punctuated by sand-colored wooden columns and beams, it stands out in a landscape whose neighbors include the city’s busy ring road, an incinerator and Jean Nouvel’s unusual Tours Duo.

Visit LAN’s Wood Up wooden tower

This is a building made of solid wood. This means that the layers of wood are bonded with either glued laminated timber (glulam) or cross-laminated timber (CLT), giving it the structural strength of concrete. All the wood came from French forests and was transported across the Seine. The exterior columns are made of Douglas fir wood, which is moisture resistant. The inner columns are made of beech wood because of their compressive strength. and the beams are made of spruce wood because of their bending strength. LAN used the leftover wood scraps to make furniture.

(Image credit: Charly Broyez)

Napolitano says the architects designed the building not only to be groundbreaking and ecological, but also extremely attractive – even “iconic”, as its riverside location makes it visible from everywhere. Transparency was a priority, from the spacious windows to the external stairs that connect the floors. “The idea was that people would feel the infrastructure in their daily lives,” he notes.

LAN has managed to make Wood Up so enticing that people move to the outskirts of the city – each of the 132 apartments, from studios to three-room apartments, are rented. Each apartment features floor-to-ceiling windows and private terraces. Some units have double-height living areas. The overall layout is modular, with small apartments on top of larger ones, so they can be combined one day (the apartments could be sold at a later date).

(Image credit: Charly Broyez)

Instead of air conditioning, the building has a sophisticated thermal management system. Deep exterior columns filter the sunlight coming through the windows. The glass is treated with a solar coating, the curtains have a reflective silver layer and there is plenty of natural ventilation.

A sense of community is also built into the structure, with a 500 m² communal terrace, including a huge, partially covered room on the eighth floor where hundreds of residents can gather to practice yoga, watch a show or host a party. Vegetables and herbs grow in a communal garden on the roof.

(Image credit: Charly Broyez)

One side of the building offers sweeping views of Paris, from the Pantheon to the Eiffel Tower to La Défense. The other looks out over the chimneys and towers of Ivry and has its own gritty urban charm, “like looking out over a German city,” says Napolitano. The Seine winds past on both sides.

Wood Up is the long-awaited result of a 2017 competition sponsored by the City of Paris and driven by COP21 commitments. It exemplifies how timber construction is experiencing a renaissance as cities look for ways to curb climate change. Among the many labels Wood Up has received include BBCA (low carbon) and Bois Français (French wood), the latter of which was created specifically for it.

(Image credit: Charly Broyez)

“Wood is an extremely interesting material in terms of carbon emissions,” explains Napolitano, “since trees absorb carbon throughout their lives and continue to sequester it throughout their life cycle.” And you don’t have to make the material, you just convert it.” The for The forests used by Wood Up are managed sustainably – for every tree felled, another is planted nearby. Napolitano estimates that the building will emit 80 percent less carbon over a 50-year life cycle than a comparable concrete structure, taking into account measures such as transporting the wood by river and recycling the wood waste.

But wood also brings challenges. One of them struck suddenly when a fire ripped through the wooden roof beams of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019. Napolitano recalls: “After that there was a lot of consideration about wood construction, which was not specifically regulated in France.” The different woods used for Wood Up were repeatedly tested to prove that they could withstand a fire for at least eight hours. The building’s external columns consist of a wooden core and an outer layer, with a non-combustible panel between them. Details such as metal ridges on each level are intended to prevent fire from spreading along the facade.

(Image credit: Charly Broyez)

Wood is also more expensive than other materials; The architect says this building cost 2,700 euros per square meter, compared to 2,500 euros for concrete. But he has no doubt that the material is worth the investment and that beautiful wooden towers will inspire others. “Fundamentally, the ecological question needs to be reformulated as a question of aesthetics,” he says. “Something that isn’t punitive but positive.”