Category

Region

Light Through Wood

Light Through Wood

Category
Daylight investigations - Region 1: Western Europe.

Students
Jaakko Tuominen

School
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Country
Finland

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BackgroundIn the EU 65% of residential energy consumption is used for heating and cooling. A lot of this energy is lost through energy inefficient windows. The new transparent wood composite material could provide an energy-efficient solution. Transparent wood is also more environmentally friendly compared to glass. Glass manufacturing is very energy-intensive. The transparent wood manufacturing process could be easily and cheaply integrated into the existing veneer rotary cutting manufacturing process.

PropertiesTransparent wood has a high optical transmittance (≈90%);Transparent wood has high clarity and low haze (≈15%) which leads to good anti-glare performance;Transparent wood retains (≈80%) of the wood’s structural strength;Transparent wood is 3 times tougher than glass and it is shatterproof;Transparent wood scatters light because of wood’s cellular structure which provides more evenly distributed lighting and less harsh shadows Transparent wood has 5 times lower thermal conductivity (0,19 W m−1 K−1) compared to glass.

ArchitectureThis new material allows architects to use daylight more freely without compromising the building’s energy efficiency or structural integrity. Transparent wood can be used astatically or as a structural element which gives it great flexibility. Transparent wood has a similar lighting feeling to the Beinecke rare book and manuscript library’s thinly cut stone slabs.

ManufacturingIn the manufacturing process wood is roll cut into a few millimetre thick slabs. Then lignin is removed from the wood, and it is replaced with PMMA. The polymer that replaces lignin in the wood structure is a newly developed eco-friendly polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)This process turns the wood translucent. Then the surface is polished and a laminate panel that is the desired thickness is manufactured.