April has turned out to be an exciting month for tall timber construction: following the proposal for the world’s tallest all-timber tower comes news that the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower – that is, made primarily from wood but with concrete reinforcement – is slated for South Perth, Australia. Assuming it goes ahead as planned, the tower will rise to an impressive height of 183 m (600 ft).
C6 is designed by Fraser & Partners (a research studio of Elenberg Fraser) for Grange Development.
Structurally, the building will consist of a concrete core, with its wooden columns, beams, and floorplates made up of approximately 7,400 cubic meters (roughly 261,000 cubic ft) of Cross-Laminated Timber, Glued Laminated Timber, and Laminated Veneer Lumber engineered wood.
Interestingly, Fraser & Partners notes that the timber required for the building can be regrown from 580 seeds. The firm is also keen to stress that it will be carbon negative – indeed, it’s named C6 after the symbol for carbon on the periodic table – though precious little information has been shared on this aspect at this stage.