Recent plans have been announced to construct the world's tallest wooden skyscraper in Tokyo, Japan. The skyscraper would be a 70-story, 350 meter (1148') tower located in the Marunouchi district in Tokyo. It's called W350, the plan being that it will be finished in the year 2041, the 350th anniversary of the founding of the company- Sumitomo Forestry Co. Ltd.
According to the Japanese company planning this incredible feat, about 10% of the 70-story W350 tower would be made from steel, which would be combined with approximately 180,000 cubic meters of indigenous wood. This ridiculous amount of wood would apparently be enough to build 8,000 homes with balconies at every level.
Sumitomo Forestry is an enormous industry in Japan, but, as of late they have been experiencing an ongoing issue. Most of their wood goes into building houses and, with a shrinking population and a dislike of immigration, there are not a lot of houses being built, so they are pivoting to, what they are deeming as 'plyscrapers.'
In order to help mitigate damage from Japan's regularly occurring earthquakes and high seismic activity, a 'braced tube structure,' with diagonal steel vibration-control braces would be placed at the center of a 350 m wood and steel column in a crisscross fashion in order to help protect the tower from potential destruction and collapse.
The estimated cost of such a project is currently said to be around 600 billion yen, which is about twice the cost of a conventional skyscraper of the same size. However, Sumitomo says it expects the costs to drop before its completion due to technological breakthroughs occurring from now until 2041.
Currently, a 53 m block of student flats in Vancouver is the world's tallest wooden skyscraper, according to a report from the Guardian. The W350 tower would stand nearly 1,150 feet tall and would be used for residential apartments and public spaces, mixed with hotel, office and even retail space, too.
If there is group of people able to pull off this architectural feat, it would be most definitely be the Japanese. Everything they do is done with such precision and accuracy, so I can see this project being one for the history books if Sumitomo is able to follow through with their astounding blueprint.
Sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42839463
https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/70-story-tallest-timber-tower-tipped-tokyo.html