Current developments in the sustainable use of resources and the recyclability of building materials offer the opportunity to process flat components such as ceilings and walls into wooden building materials, e.g. cross laminated timber, frameworks and composite structures. Where reinforced concrete has been left in its original form and processing, flat wooden building elements offer great advantages and development opportunities, for example, due to their weight and high degree of prefabrication.

Before a house is built, the decision is made in the planning stage about the building materials to be used. At the same time, we are deciding which materials the future residents of the house will be surrounded by – a question not only of economic and technical considerations, but also of emotions. But regardless of whether the aim is to build as cost-effectively as possible, to build in a healthy and ecological way, to achieve constructive advantages or to create sensual aspects, one material can win favour in every area: wood. The visible wooden ceilings and facades create pleasant, soft room acoustics, and the smell of the wood gives the feeling of good, healthy air. In terms of construction, the innovative method can be considered equivalent to solid construction, and in ecological terms, timber construction has many advantages.

The advantages of wood as a material are particularly striking when compared directly with traditional solid construction. Wood from the local area has short delivery distances, is naturally insulating and, if necessary, can easily be replaced and returned to the cycle. While metal or cement has only one property, wood can be used for both tension and compression – an unbeatable advantage.
The wooden elements are pre-assembled by experienced carpenters in factory halls, doors and windows are fitted precisely and technology is installed. The pre-assembled parts are delivered and put together on the construction site; no painting is necessary. There is also no bricklaying, cement mixing or building materials that only fulfil their purpose in a complicated mix of materials and later have to be separated from each other again at great expense. Another massive saving can be seen in the thermal energy. All other building materials require a great deal of heat to produce them – steel has to be melted and bricks fired. Wood does not require this energy input, and the construction time is considerably reduced. The impact on existing residents drops rapidly and the high degree of accuracy of fit guarantees a smooth construction process.

The approach of a life cycle analysis (LCA) - which adds up the extraction of resources from the environment and the effects on the environment - clearly demonstrates the ecological advantages of timber construction. Renewable raw materials such as wood without a lot of processing energy perform much better here than building materials made from fossil raw materials. Wooden houses have always had above-average thermal insulation. Due to the lower thermal conductivity of wood, the wall structure in timber construction is smaller with the same U-values as in solid construction in favour of a larger living space. In terms of insulation quality, timber construction is better than solid construction; in terms of sound insulation and fire protection, greater care must be taken in the planning and execution of timber construction than in solid construction, but this can easily be compensated for by industrial prefabrication in the workshop and the greater use of computer-controlled machines.

Around 360 cubic metres of softwood will be used in the timber construction on Mainzer Strasse. This corresponds to a dry weight of around 144 tonnes (the same building in solid construction would contain 1,565 tonnes of reinforced concrete and masonry). To produce this amount of wood, approx. 264 tonnes of CO2 (or the equivalent of 105,000 litres of crude oil) was removed from the atmosphere by the trees during photosynthesis. This amount of CO2 is stored (locked away) by the wooden construction. This is the case at least for the lifespan of the building. Long after the average lifespan of a property, the wood used in the construction will rot again and release the stored CO2 back into the air or it can be recycled to generate energy.