Wood-n’t it be nice?

Rafał Ostrowski, ‘Eurobuild CEE’: Wood has become an increasingly popular construction material – not only for detached houses but also for office buildings, hotels, residential projects as well as retail. Your architectural studio has some experience in designing wooden houses. How did you get involved in this niche? Yves Schihin, co-owner of Burkhalter Sumi Architekten: We have been designing wooden buildings since the 1990s. The latest example of this is the 6,200 sqm Giesshübel housing and office project in Zurich, which was completed in 2013. A four-storey prefabricated timber structure was added to the top of an existing two-storey concrete building. Since then we have won two other competitions with timber structures: for the seven-storey Laudinella Hotel (270 rooms) in St Moritz and a five-storey residential project (80 apartments) in Zurich. What has triggered this return to wooden construction? Wood was very pop