Metsä Wood, a Finnish engineered wood product company, has awarded the Estonian start-up Team 99 for its innovative design of a module that can be used to construct buildings of different sizes and shapes, at the same time reducing their overall carbon footprint. The team consisted, amongst others, of TTK UAS’ architecture students Sten-Mark Mändmaa, Kristel Ratassepp, Elar Rämmeld and Kaarel Susi.

The awarded design was one of the outcomes of the wood hackathon Future of Wood, organised by the Academy of Art and Garage 48 in Tallinn. The event, which attracted about 100 participants, aimed to develop climate-friendly solutions through the most efficient use of wood, the natural and renewable building material.

Priit Reinpõld, a member of the €1,500 award-winning Team 99, says that the team’s mission at the hackathon was to come up with a solution that would help everyone to build better. “By better, I mean faster, higher and greener. The entry for the Open Source Wood Challenge includes a universal modular building unit that realises this aspiration,” he concludes.

The system presented by the winning team was designed to offer a modern method for timber joinery, combining traditional carpentry techniques and performed by CNC machines, using engineered wood products like Kerto® LVL. In addition to technical aspects, sustainability and buildings’ entire lifecycle were considered.

“To enable reuse or even upcycling of materials after a building has served its purpose, it’s critical to avoid mixing materials. The offered solution makes this achievable, opening up the possibility of designing and creating carbon-neutral buildings,” Reinpõld says.

All the designs are shared on opensourcewood.com, including the winning design by Team 99, and are freely available to anyone. More information available here.