Czech Regional Development Minister Ivan Bartoš (Pirates) has asked Interior Minister Vít Rakušan (STAN) to reconsider the fire decree restricting the construction of wooden buildings. These cannot currently be higher than 12 metres and cannot have more than four storeys. Bartoš announced this on his Twitter account yesterday.
“In foreign countries, wooden buildings can have six or seven floors, technically there is nothing preventing it. Buildings made of wood have many advantages. It is a modern, sustainable and energy-efficient construction option that can help increase housing affordability. Unlike steel, wood does not lose its load-bearing capacity at higher temperatures. That’s not really the problem,” Bartoš wrote.
According to the fire ordinance, buildings up to 12 metres can contain Class E insulators, a type that is able to withstand the effects of flames for a short period of time and thus contribute significantly to the eventual combustion. Wood also falls into this category. Taller buildings must already contain totally non-combustible A1 or A2 insulators such as slats and mineral wool.
In some foreign countries, the limits for the construction of timber buildings are not so strict. In Brummundal, Norway, an 18-storey wooden building called Mjostarnet was built in 2019, which contains, for example, a hotel, offices and a restaurant. In the HafenCity district of Hamburg, Germany, a 65-metre residential building is currently under construction, and plans have also been drawn up for a 100-metre high-rise in Berlin.
The biggest pioneer in the timber building sector is Finland, which is also the largest producer of timber in Europe. It plans to achieve total carbon neutrality by 2035 and has therefore also started to focus on the use of wood in urban development, public buildings and large-scale construction. This is the focus of Petri Heino, director of the Finnish Ministry of the Environment’s special programme on wood construction, who says that at least 45 per cent of public buildings in Finland should be built of wood by 2025.
In the Czech Republic, the construction of wood buildings is being pursued, for example, by Sweden’s Skanska, which is building nearly 80 apartments in Prague’s Radlice district, or Austria’s UBM Development, which in May began construction of the Timber Prague project with 62 new housing units. Finnish YIT is currently completing the Suomi complex in Prague’s Hloubětín district with a wooden kindergarten for 100 children.
Source: CTK
