Building with Wood in the Northern Climate

In the Nordic countries, forests have traditionally offered a readily available material for building with wood. As an organic and locally grown material, wood lends itself naturally to the northern climate. Due to its thermal insulating qualities, its hygroscopic properties, and its innate capacity to adjust to changes in the temperature and moisture levels, wood performs excellently in the northern conditions. It ages well and acquires a beautiful patina over the years.

Over time, a deep understanding of the characteristics of different species of trees and the qualities of wood grown in different parts of the forest has been formed into a nuanced knowledge of building with wood. It has been passed on from one generation to the next. Through practice and experimentation, the methods of working with wood have been honed into a rich array of purposeful solutions with local variations and intricate detailing. This accumulated knowledge is a valuable resource for us today. It can be applied to the contemporary techniques of building, even if the process, scale, and methods of construction differ from the traditional ones.

In Finland, the tradition of building with wood has been shaped by an appreciation for the scarcity of resources. In the northern climate wood grows slowly, and the availability of alternative building materials has been limited. Due to the slow growth, Nordic wood is typically dense and strong. It also has great tensile qualities. It is relatively soft to work with and easy to handle due to its light weight.

To maximize usefulness, every solution is determined by its functional purpose and every detail is carefully tailored to take advantage of the natural properties of wood. In the vernacular tradition, wooden buildings are made to be easy to repair and possible to expand. The wood used in one building can be reused for another, or the entire building can be moved to a different site. The principle of purposeful detailing makes it easy to replace worn out parts. This tradition of repairing and reusing wooden building parts offers us a valuable example to learn from.

Wood as a material for the future

While wood is a material of the past, it is also a material with a great potential for use today and tomorrow thanks to its natural capacity for variation and adaptability. Over time, the techniques of building with wood have evolved in response to the changes in technology. The new engineered timber products are an illustration of the adaptability of wood. With a high level of efficiency achieved through standardization, prefabrication, and mass production, they enable new solutions and a scale much bigger than was achievable with traditional methods.

Now is a moment of new possibilities. We still have access to the traditional knowledge with its finely developed practices that combine a strong sense of functionality with a rich aesthetic expression. Drawing from the vernacular knowledge, we can take advantage of the potential brought by the new techniques for processing wood to create completely new solutions.

While the engineered timber products behave differently from the traditional ones, they share the same advantages based on the properties of wood. Thanks to the thermal qualities of wood, it is possible to reach a high level of energy efficiency in a wooden building. Due to the hygroscopic qualities of wood, indoor air quality in wooden buildings is good and it is possible to maintain balanced humidity levels in a natural way. Wood is also recyclable and reusable, and it has a natural capacity to store carbon during its entire lifespan.

Combined with traditional knowledge, the new techniques introduce a great potential. For example, prefabrication makes it possible to develop new systems of flexibly customizable modularity to provide variable, efficient, and sustainable solutions for urban housing. Much like the traditional log structure functions as a system of reusable building components, the prefabricated volumetric modules made of CLT can be combined in various configurations, taken apart, and reassembled again offering a possibility for reuse for a different function or another site. Prefabrication also makes it possible to reduce the period of construction on site to a minimum, which helps to minimize the exposure to weather conditions during construction.

Prompted by a new awareness of the global interconnectedness of our actions and their impact on the environment, we seek answers to the big questions of climate change, the need to provide housing for the rapidly urbanizing population of the world, and the burden of the construction industry on the environment. With a global awareness, we can now return with a new appreciation to the deep knowledge embedded in the local heritage of building with wood. We can choose what to take from the toolbox of vernacular knowledge and how to combine it with the new opportunities offered by contemporary methods of building with wood.

Main image: Puukuokka Housing Block, Aerial view, Jyväskylä, Finland, 2018, OOPEAA. Photo © Mikko Auerniitty

Video: Jonni Roos/Uuden Avaaja, Raimo Uunila/Grape Productions                                                                                                                                      Publisher: MFA Museum of Finnish Architecture, Alvar Aalto Museum, SAFA