The "sustainable condominium", a six storey timber building in Florence

Following the sustainability policies of the Regional Council of Tuscany, Casa SPA a public company located in Florence which is in charge of designing, constructing and maintaining the social housing real estate of the whole Florentine area, started a project which will lead to the construction in a central area of Florence of three multistorey buildings, one of which is a six storey building, which will be entirely constructed using timber load bearing structures with the cross-laminated panel system. Particularly, the six storey building, which will be totally constructed with timber cross-laminated panels as bearing structures, including walls, floors, and all stair and lift cores, will be the first pioneer construction of such a tall residential timber building in a seismic area in Italy. In this paper the details of the project are presented, focusing particularly on the architectural, structural and sustainability issues. The construction will start in summer 2010.