UBM Development Czechia has completed the rough construction of the Timber Prague project of wooden apartment buildings, which are being built as part of the Arcus City residential complex in Prague-Reporyje. These modern chamber buildings made of solid CLT panels express the first multi-storey apartment buildings made of wood in the modern history of the capital city. They comprise a total of 62 units with layouts from 1 + kk to 4 + kk, ranging in size from 39 sqm to 110 sqm and each of them has its own cellar, parking space in the underground garages and a balcony, terrace or front garden. To date, a quarter of the apartments have been sold. The project is being built to BREEAM Excellent standard.
The Timber Prague project's three- and four-storey apartment buildings were completed just seven months after the beginning of construction. Work is now moving into the interiors, with landscaping also underway. "We estimated the core and shell construction to take around six to seven months. It has been confirmed to us that wooden buildings bring a significant reduction compared to concrete construction, in this case by about a third," explains Tomáš Krejčí, Director of the Design Department at UBM Development Czechia, adding: "The entire above-ground part of the Timber Praha apartment buildings is made of spruce wood. We chose larch for the exterior facade cladding. Wood will also be used in the interiors, not only as a visual element on the ceilings of the living rooms and corridors but also on the staircases. The foundations, or more precisely the underground structure, are made of concrete. It is also used for the subfloor up to 20 centimetres above ground level and for the stair arms. Only one building has the entire staircase, including the elevator shaft, made of concrete, and that is for fire reasons."
The use of modern prefabrication technology also contributed to shortening the construction time and achieving even higher quality. ELK brought the robotically fabricated parts produced in the factory ready for construction and assembled them. UBM chose this method for the wooden load-bearing structures of walls and ceilings and in some Timber Praha buildings also for bathrooms. The prefabricated bathrooms come from the specialist company Sanika in Italy. The supplier of wooden structures is the renowned ELK company with many years of experience and know-how, and the subcontractor for CLT panels is the Pfeifer Group - both from Austria.
UBM plans to help speed up the process of legislative changes
The current legislation is crucial for the design of wooden buildings in the Czech Republic. In addition to the strict fire regulations, it is necessary to take into account the standards for the design of timber structures, which are now gradually being modified on the basis of current European and international regulations. Currently, in the Czech Republic, it is not possible to construct buildings of timber higher than four storeys, i.e. above 12 metres fire height. The parent company UBM Development AG, which plans to become Europe's largest developer of ecological buildings with timber construction, is, for example, planning the construction of a 113-metre-high Timber Marina Tower office building with a timber-hybrid structure in Vienna. Following its example, UBM Czechia is committed to modernising existing regulations to increase the use of wood in the domestic construction industry.
