Timber Cities / Greener Planet

18:00 - 18:30

La Centrale, Nuvola Lavazza

The largest neighborhood designed entirely of wood in the world: a utopia for our urban futures come true.

Sara Kulturhus is a landmark cultural center and high-rise hotel located in Skellefteå, northern Sweden. Designed by White Arkitekter, with Oskar Norelius as one of the lead architects, the building opened in 2021 and quickly gained international recognition for its pioneering use of timber in large-scale urban construction. Rising 75 meters high, it is one of the tallest wooden buildings in the world.

The project is named after Sara Lidman, a prominent local writer and activist, and combines multiple civic and cultural functions under one roof: including a public library, six theater stages, art galleries, conference spaces, a hotel with over 200 rooms, and a restaurant. The aim was to create a new public living room for the city: a place where culture, community, and sustainability intersect.

The structure is made almost entirely of locally sourced cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued laminated timber (glulam), celebrating both Skellefteå’s rich timber tradition and its ambition to be a climate-forward municipality. The design blends a vertical hotel tower with a horizontally layered cultural plinth, creating a strong yet open identity that anchors the city center.

Sara Kulturhus is a model for carbon-conscious construction, showing that large-scale architecture can be both ambitious and ecologically responsible. It has been awarded multiple prizes and continues to serve as a symbol of local pride, climate innovation, and cultural generosity.

Stockholm

Oskar Norelius Partner at White Arkitekter

Stockholm Wood City

Oskar Norelius is an architect and partner at White Arkitekter, one of the most prominent firms in Scandinavian architecture. He is one of the lead architects of Stockholm Wood City, the world's largest wooden neighborhood, which marks a turning point in the transition to a carbon-free city by demonstrating how to overcome the limitations of wood construction through an approach based on technical innovation and local roots.

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