How do you build timber multi-family housing?

Wooden multi-family homes are lively, warm and natural, all qualities associated with the material they are made of. At a time when the new demands of environmental quality in buildings and sustainable development require us to reconsider the act of building, wood is becoming a key element thanks to its intrinsic properties: aesthetic, sound and heat insulating, ecological, it offers a wide range of performances. Thanks to technical advances and the originality of its designers, timber construction has become a key element of architectural design. Thanks to a host of ecological, economic and social advantages, timber housing is becoming increasingly popular. Wood is thus at the service of development strategies. It's a real alternative to the housing shortage in France.

Natural and technical, beautiful and inventive, wood gives architecture its human dimension. Wooden buildings blend naturally into the landscape. In urban environments, it adds warmth to the ubiquitous concrete environment. Architects have embraced wood in their creations as a major asset for rediscovering beauty. Its elasticity means it can be adapted to any geometry. It blends easily with all materials, and is a source of continual inventiveness.

The collective and grouped housing sector is the source of many innovations. Energy efficiency, which aims to reduce heating requirements as much as possible while improving occupant comfort, is the main driver behind these developments. Urban densification, project economics and environmental performance are also key issues. After the boom in single-family homes, timber construction is now taking root in collective housing.

It provides technical and economic solutions, and even serves as a basis for experimental operations in the field of sustainable housing. The diversity of architectural concepts, locations and technical choices all contribute to the variety of collective projects. For example, the modular, industrialised timber-frame solution can be used for a wide range of housing types without sacrificing architecture, including timber-framed collective housing. Modular wood is also a solution for building student residences. Modular housing provides an effective response to accommodation needs, particularly in university towns such as Nantes, Angers and Le Mans, which welcome almost 114,000 students every year.

Prefabrication optimises construction. Prefabrication is an industrial process that consists of building all or part of the construction in a workshop before assembly on site. Prefabrication makes it possible to improve the quality of the structures and anticipate the different phases of the project, to ensure better logistics with fewer people on site, to limit nuisance on site, to be less dependent on the vagaries of the weather and to reduce assembly time on site. What's more, prefabrication helps to keep costs under control. The prefabrication of walls or three-dimensional modules in the workshop makes it easier to reproduce elements. Timber construction solutions mean that the process can be duplicated on different projects or adapted to suit different uses, the number of homes, the architectural concept, the topography, etc.

Of all building materials, wood, which is a poor conductor, is the least wasteful. For the same thickness, it insulates 6 times more than brick, 15 times more than concrete and 450 times more than aluminium. Designers use wood construction methods because it enables them to meet the most stringent requirements in terms of thermal insulation and airtightness. As a result, wood is a popular choice for the construction of positive-energy buildings. Its ability to store carbon, to be renewable and recyclable, and to consume little energy and no water in its transformation make wood the essential material for sustainable construction. The project owners and project managers we interviewed all associate this material with respect for the environment. Wood brings a positive image to collective housing, helping to integrate residents more fully into society. Wood construction also guarantees healthy, solid and durable collective housing.

Allowing for an overall economy of the project, collective housing in wood is also an adequate response to the constraints of town planning, from a material of the future that makes the choice of a reasonable future resolutely turned towards sustainable development.