On Friday, 18th of September 2020, our Consortium partner proHolz Tirol, a regional timber association, organised a press conference about multi-storey and urban timber construction. The event took place in the Tyrolean Economic Chamber in the centre of Innsbruck and had five main speakers (right to left):
Georg Willi, the Mayor of Innsbruck (r.)
Christian Höller, Chairman of Chamber of Architects
Jörg Koppelhuber, Timber Engineering Consultant
Wolfgang Saurer, CEO of Saurer Timber Construction Company
Helmut Troger, Board Member of proHolz Tirol
Rüdiger Lex (l.), the proHolz managing director, moderated the press conference.
High demand for urban housing
Innsbruck is one of Build-in-Wood's Early Adopter Cities, among metropolises such as London and Copenhagen. The main challenge the Tyrolean capital city is facing, is its mountainous location, strongly limiting the space for new housing. Three points are crucial here:
Efficient in-fill development
Best possible use of the available building ground
Adding more storeys to existing buildings.
Living spaces must be planned and implemented as sensibly and sustainably as possible. Timber makes a huge contribution here, since even large buildings can be realized in a very short time using precisely prefabricated elements. Georg Willi, mayor of the city of Innsbruck is comitted to support the Buid-in-Wood project goal of making timber the natural choice of buildig material for multi-storey buildings:
“As mayor of the city of Innsbruck, I see my responsibility to make construction work in the state capital as climate-friendly as possible. We can't avoid including wood as an essential building material in future building projects.”
Quotes from speakers of the press conference
Christian Höller, Chairman of Chamber of Architects: "It is crucial that the commitment to the material wood is an early one. Only this way, we can do the material justice and make use of its full potential."
Jörg Koppelhuber, Timber Engineering Consultant: "We have to stop planning during construction - and instead manage everything consistently from one-stop."
Wolfgang Saurer, CEO of Saurer Timber Construction Company: "The high degree of prefabrication offers many advantages to a city like Innsbruck - less traffic regulations, less noise, less pollution and dust."
Helmut Troger, Board Member of proHolz Tirol: “Building with wood is of great benefit to the local economy. From forestry and the wood industry to final processing by carpenters and joiners, we have a complete value chain in Tyrol. With its many well-known small and large companies and global players, the local wood industry has a high level of economic power with thousands of jobs. "
