Hybrid sandwich wall element – sustainable and efficient construction

Hybrid construction offers construction companies more sustainable way of building without changing the current way of construction. Metsä Wood and its partners have designed a hybrid sandwich wall element which will renew offsite construction. The innovation combines concrete with Kerto® LVL (laminated veneer lumber).

The lighter weight of the hybrid sandwich wall elements proved to be a valuable benefit in the first construction project at Metsä Fibre’s Rauma sawmill. "The use of hybrid elements reduces the amount of concrete, and the elements are also lighter than typical elements,” says Ilkka Romo, Director of the Productivity and Quality Unit at Skanska.

Sustainable construction with lightweight roof elements

To make the construction industry more sustainable, we must use more wood in construction. Wood is the only renewable construction material that also stores carbon. However, the construction industry still mainly uses steel and concrete, which instead have a negative impact on the climate.

Founded in 2008, Flens Byggelement delivers wooden construction elements to all of Scandinavia. The company makes prefabricated wooden elements in its 12,000-square-metre plant located in Flen, some 100 kilometres south-west of Stockholm. According to Rickard Brännman, project manager at Flens Byggelement, there are many reasons why the industry should use more wood.

Metsä Group is planning to invest EUR 200 million in the construction of a Kerto® LVL mill in Äänekoski

​Metsä Wood, part of Metsä Group, is planning to construct a new Kerto® LVL mill on its expanding mill area in Äänekoski, Finland. The final decision on the investment, the value of which is approximately EUR 200 million, is pending the completion of a local detailed plan for the area.

The annual Kerto LVL production capacity of the new mill, to be constructed in phases between 2022 and 2026, will be approximately 150,000 cubic metres. This means an increase of some 50 per cent in Metsä Group’s current Kerto LVL production. 

Open Source Wood gathers structural calculation tools in one place

Open Source Wood offers innovation, ideas and a library of element and module designs, freely available to everyone. Now, Open Source Wood also offers easy access to structural calculation tools.

Fast, urban wood construction is a sustainable choice

People around the world are moving to cities, which increases the need for construction in urban areas. There is limited space available, which means that construction must take place on small plots of land or on top of existing buildings. For example, in Bonn, Germany, 6.6 million square metres of land areas is taken up by residential buildings. Additional storeys could be built on around 27% of the buildings in this area. This means 20,000 new apartments.

Wood construction is the solution when new storeys need to be added to old apartment buildings and when available land is limited. In this blog, Jussi Björman explains the benefits of light and environmentally friendly Kerto® LVL in construction.

New country-specific Kerto® LVL span tables

​Metsä Group and Business Finland joined forces in building a wooden Metsä pavilion on the grounds of the Finnish Embassy in the centre of Tokyo, Japan.. The Pavilion will be used as a venue for different Embassy meetings and Business Finland events. It will also host the Finnish national team during the 2021 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This pavilion is an example of innovative architecture based on industrially manufactured wooden elements. The building was made entirely from Metsä Wood’s Kerto® LVL (laminated veneer lumber) elements. The pavilion has been designed by world-renowned Finnish architect Pekka Helin from Helin & Co Architects.

The raw material for the pavilion comes from sustainably grown Finnish forests, owned by Jukka Heikkonen. 

Project Manager Lasse Hietanen, from Finnish AINS Group, is responsible for the structural design of the Metsä Pavilion. The main goal was to create this unique building using as few parts as possible, making the production of Kerto LVL as efficient as possible.

The elements used in Metsä Wood and Business Finland’s Metsä Pavilion were produced at the Timberpoint factory in Loviisa, Finland. CEO and co-founder of Timberpoint Marko Suonpää  highlights that tight-knit collaboration between several professionals made the pavilion come to life.

The low weight of Kerto LVL elements was an advantage in the transport, and the lightness also made onsite handling easy. “The elements could be quickly put together on site,” says Jyrki Huttunen, CEO of Puurakentajat Oy, the company responsible for the erection of the Pavilion in Tokyo. On site, Japanese architect Atsushi Ueda was monitoring the construction and Ueda’s team also installed windows and finished up the interior and the visible surfaces of the Pavilion.