The WOODSCRAPER+ is the first high-rise building which achieves a circular and positive use of resources and creates a healthy living environment using timber - with no additional costs and flexible potential for conversion and further use. They consist primarily of renewable resources. A new approach to timber is central to the WOODSCRAPER+ development. It is a prototype that demonstrates how we can react technically to a scarcity of resources, climate change and population growth in Northern Europe. It is accompanied by a research project supported by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).

WOODSCRAPER+ is proof that, through its holistic approach, sustainability and design need not be a contradiction. Indeed, design holds the key to the challenges of the future. Through rationalised and integral planning, the integration of investment and life cycle costs and analyses of the eco-balance during the design process, it was possible to prove in the research supported by the DBU that resource-positive construction with lean building technology is possible today in the high-rise typology without additional costs. Resource positive in this context means that the building generates more resources during its lifespan than it requires for its construction and repair. It also means that the resources used can be recycled separately and, in an ideal case, have been renewed again completely during this time.

Prefabricated elements mean WOODSCRAPER+ can be constructed without scaffolding. The resources used can be removed and recycled separately for further use to close the material cycle. Waste generation is therefore a thing of the past. In addition, the renewable materials used also act as a reservoir for greenhouse gases. WOODSCRAPER+ already stores more greenhouse gases during construction than are required for its erection. WOODSCRAPER+ demonstrates: that thinking of the outcome is the premise for building the future.

About the prize German Federal Ecodesign Award More information at www.woodscraper.de
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