1.3 ARCHITECT AND STRUCTURAL DESIGNER APPRAISALS OF LVL Architect’s view of LVL, Mika Ukkonen, Finland From the designer’s point of view, wooden constructions give a different opportunity to create recognizable and distinctive architecture that is produced naturally, drawing on the natural structural properties of wood. I have worked as the principal designer and architectural designer for several residential multi-storey wooden building projects delivering 242 apartments to date. I have also designed around 300 apartments for architectural competitions and our office currently has approximately 200 apartments under design for new wooden multi-storey buildings. As a construction material wood is ideal for versatile urban design and provides possibilities for a modern life cycle approach to living. Wood is the only 100% renewable construction material and the use of wood slows climate change. Wooden load-bearing structures create pleasant environments, healthy indoor air and comfortable acoustics. The high prefabrication rate of offsite production enables fast construction times on the building site. As a construction material, wood provides excellent opportunities for flexible modifications of the layout of a building during its whole life cycle. The structural system in our projects is based on large timber frame panel elements. Each project involves product development of various building components, which gives us the ability to optimize the best solutions and architecture 1. LVL AS A CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL Figure 1.10. Renovation applications, left: LVL floor beam reinforcement, right: attic frames for room in roof space with LVL reinforced roof trusses. Stora Enso Figure 1.11. Off-site produced wooden volumetric elements, BoKloK, Vantaa, Finland. 16 LVL Handbook Europe
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