South Korea Updates Regulations: New Opportunities for Wooden Multi-Family Residential Building

South Korea has announced a major change to construction regulations that will facilitate the use of wood in multi-family building, Canada Wood Group reported (4-19-24).

According to Tai Jeong, Country Director of Canada Wood Korea, the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MoLIT) has announced a change in the building regulations for wooden multi-family residential buildings.

The new legislation will eliminate the existing requirement for thick concrete floors that serve as sound barriers between units in wood frame apartment buildings. Previously, all multi-family buildings were required to have floors with a minimum thickness of 210 mm of concrete slab.

This requirement made constructing wooden apartment complexes challenging and costly, particularly due to the unrealistic thickness and weight of the concrete needed, as well as issues with securely connecting different parts of the building. Many industry professionals—including developers and builders of wooden structures—have argued that this was a major obstacle in constructing wood-framed multi-family homes.

The new regulations will not impact townhomes with party walls, such as duplexes, which do not have shared floors and therefore face no wood usage restrictions. However, they will significantly benefit older types of Korean multi-family buildings, like Dagagu and Dasaedae, that traditionally required concrete floors. Dagagu buildings, typically single-owner structures with multiple rented units, are usually limited to three stories. Dasaedae buildings are low-rise multi-family homes, often condominiums, with each unit individually owned and a similar size limit.

Previously, the requirement for concrete floors resulted in the loss of a market for 800 annual Dagagu housing starts for Canadian wood products, according to Canada Wood Group. The removal of this requirement is expected to revitalize this market, potentially restoring Canadian wood as a primary material in these constructions.