EIT Climate-KIC and Built by Nature Look to Accelerate Timber Building in Europe with Milan, Italy Project

Built by Nature, with a stated mission to accelerate the timber building transformation in Europe, has announced a EUR 250,000 Accelerator Fund grant to support research into perception barriers to mass timber adoption in Italy. The initiative, coordinated by EIT Climate-KIC, will establish a physical and digital prototype building to drive understanding and adoption of mass timber, while maximizing the amount of timber used in construction of the one-million-square meter Milano Innovation District (MIND) complex.

EIT Climate-KIC will coordinate collective learning as part of the research initiative, and the Accelerator Fund grant will connect to EIT Climate-KIC’s Deep Demonstrations of Healthy Clean Cities EU CINCO, funded by the Laudes Foundation. The aim of the CINCO project is to learn how can cities shape the markets for carbon-neutral buildings through two experimentations for bio-based and circular construction in Milan and Madrid.

The two initiatives set the stage for collaboration with local stakeholders, the city, developers, and designers by supporting the creation of skills, motivation, and leadership to collaboratively explore how to activate levers for timber transformation of buildings. Both Built by Nature and EIT Climate-KIC’s partner networks will share the outputs of the project.

Project partners include multinational property and construction company Lendlease (which provides co-funding of EUR 528,000), Waugh Thistleton Architects (who are designing the prototypes), Fondazione Politecnico di Milano (who is conducting a review of scientific literature on mass timber sustainability implications in Italy), as well as University College of London, Arup and Stora Enso.