LifeCycle Tower (cree GmbH)

Architect Hermann Kaufmann

With the first eight-storey wooden building in Austria, the visionary Hermann Kaufmann proved that timber system construction can do more than had been previously thought. Behind the Life Cycle Tower stands a research project on sustainability in urban development and the company Rhomberg Bau with a project known as Cree – Creative Resource & Energy Efficiency. In the first phase of the research process, international experts from the world of architecture, structural engineering, building physics, building technology and process management worked together to test how high a timber building can be. The result of the study was a wooden hybrid house up to twenty storeys high which only uses 822 tonnes of CO2 throughout its existence – in contrast to the 10,375 tonnes used by a conventional tower block. The 1st Life Cycle Tower in Dornbirn is a prototype which is used mainly as an office, but the plan is to reach series production of the building. The fire prevention certificate was granted following experiments with fire, and construction is economical on resources and saves time: Every story can be constructed within a day using the prefabricated timber construction elements.