Alone in space, the most beautiful of planets drifts on an endless journey. But it is in danger – or rather, its crew is. Parts of it, we humans, have forgotten the fundamental prerequisite for a sustainable voyage: stewardship. Everything needed on the journey must be created and regenerated on board.
This is how Staffan Schartner began his lecture when he was inaugurated as adjunct professor of timber architecture. And that is precisely what he is passionate about: promoting timber construction worldwide for the sake of our planet's future.
– I have a longstanding commitment to environmental issues and a deep interest in the link between sustainable forestry and timber construction, where each supports the other. Timber construction has the potential to be the strongest driving force for restoring forests, instead of converting them into land for soya farming or beef cattle.
Construction worse than buildings themselves
Staffan Schartner
Adjunct professor of timber architecture
Staffan Schartner is a qualified architect who has worked for many years with construction, project management, and co-building groups in Austria and Sweden. His role includes networking, teaching, and research in the field of timber construction.
Funder: The position is funded within the framework of The Bridge, a strategic partnership between Södra, Ikea and Linnaeus University.
Staffan's interest in wood developed over many years. When he began working as an architect in the 1980s, the focus was on creating energy-efficient buildings through good windows, solid insulation, and smart heating systems.
He soon realised that the greatest environmental issue was no longer the operation of buildings but the construction process itself. He and his colleagues were complicit in causing a significant part of the planet’s growing problems. As a result, for the past fifteen years, he has focused on timber construction and methods for achieving it.
– Concrete and steel are major environmental villains. Concrete is produced by driving carbon dioxide out of limestone, a fossil material, and accounts for eight percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Steel is nearly as bad, responsible for seven percent of emissions, as its production involves reducing the oxygen in iron ore using coal.
Many unsuitable materials
There are also many other unsuitable materials and toxins in the construction industry. For example, nearly all buildings built in Sweden are erected on plastic insulation; what happens to that over time? Wooden components are assembled with large quantities of screws and fittings, which are difficult to separate when a building needs to be dismantled.
Three questions about sustainable construction
Is wood the most sustainable building material?
– Wood is available all over the world, is renewable, and performs excellently under both tension and compression. It is also very light in relation to its strength. Furthermore, only a tiny fraction of the Swedish forest is used for timber frames. Building a multi-family house in timber corresponds to the growth that takes place in the Swedish forest over just a few minutes.
Did we build more smartly in the past?
– I believe so. The fact that we have become accustomed to taxing labour heavily while trying to avoid high taxes on goods is a major issue. The balance between investing more labour in something and using more material has shifted. We would benefit from being more careful and attentive, but we no longer have the resources or time for that.
What characterises sustainable architecture?
– Naturally, architecture must fit within a circular economy. Truly sustainable architecture is that which the future can and wants to preserve. Longevity can mean different things: that something is so well-made it lasts indefinitely, or that it can evolve with time by being dismantled, relocated, or repurposed.
– We must stop building timber buildings as if they were concrete buildings and develop an architecture suited specifically to wood. We are not quite there yet.
The same applies to adhesives. The industry is transitioning from oil-based to bio-based adhesives, but even these can contain plastic. When bonded building components eventually break down, where does that plastic end up? These are the kinds of problems Staffan seeks to solve.
– How can we laminate by nailing wooden layers together with wooden nails? And connect wooden components using wood as the joining material? Perhaps we should revert more to using homogeneous pieces of wood, instead of sawing apart and gluing back together again? Much speaks in favour of timber houses – but not like in former times; rather, in a modern interpretation.
Great potential worldwide
At Linnaeus University, Staffan works with teaching, networking, and the research project Competitive timber structures. The project is a collaboration with 18 companies and industry organisations, worth SEK 135 million, primarily funded by the Knowledge Foundation. Its goal is to make the construction sector climate neutral – or even climate positive.
One goal of the networking is to establish collaboration between Linnaeus University, the organisation Eco Innovation Foundation, and countries needing to improve the value chain from forestry to timber construction. These countries are primarily found in Africa, where population growth and urbanisation are driving much of the world's future construction.
– Africa is relatively sparsely populated but has enormous forest resources. In countries like Kenya and Uganda, there is fantastic potential and strong interest in developing the value chain. Kenya is far ahead in the work with wooden construction but is one of the African countries that has the least amount of forest. Uganda, on the other hand, has more forest and plantations.
One example of the possibilities is a piece of laminated veneer timber made from eucalyptus that Staffan was shown by a delegation from Thailand. Laminated veneer timber involves gluing together thin layers of wood to create load-bearing material with fantastic properties. Their trees had been harvested after just five years – whereas in Scandinavia, it would take up to 80 years to produce a comparable material.
– Those who have done the calculations suggest it would be possible to build all the buildings in the world out of wood without reducing the number of trees in the forests. But that requires well-functioning forestry management globally.
In Sweden, there is potential to increase the value of the forest so that forest owners can afford even better stewardship, Staffan believes. If they were paid twice as much for their timber at the sawmill, it would not increase the price of the finished timber-frame building by more than about one per cent.
Building a multi-family house in timber corresponds to the growth that takes place in the Swedish forest over just a few minutes.
Expertise across multiple fields
Staffan’s position is funded by The Bridge, a strategic partnership between Södra, Ikea, and Linnaeus University, covering the entire value chain of the forest. The work combines social, economic, and environmental aspects to create innovative and sustainable solutions.
– Nowhere else in Sweden is so much expertise within these fields gathered in one place. That is also why I was so keen to work here.