London's skyline could soon feature a timber skyscraper, as plans for an 80 storey high timber building are presented to mayor Boris Johnson.

A team of architects from Cambridge University and architecture firms PLP and Smith and Wallwork have presented their concept for the 80 storey, 300 metre high timber building, which would become part of the Barbican complex.

According to their proposal, timber has the benefit of being renewable, costs less, improves construction timescales and reduces the overall weight of a building.


University of Cambridge

"The Barbican was designed in the middle of the last century to bring residential living into the city of London – and it was successful," said Michael Ramage, who heads up the Cambridge University team. "We've put our proposals on the Barbican as a way to imagine what the future of construction could look like in the 21st century."

The proposals could create over 1,000 new residential units within the Barbican, and the team said it would create a "more pleasing, relaxed, sociable and creative urban experience" and would be part of a "major innovation" in construction.

The team said that people had a "greater affinity" for taller buildings in natural materials, rather than steel and concrete towers. They argued that timber and other natural materials were "vastly underused". "Nearly every historic building, from King’s College Chapel to Westminster Hall, has made extensive use of timber," said Ramage. "We've designed the architecture and engineering and demonstrated it will stand, but this is at a scale no one has attempted to build before," he continued. "We are developing a new understanding of primary challenges in structure and construction. There is a lot of work ahead, but we are confident of meeting all the challenges before us."