Issue 08 | May 2026
Forging New Frontiers
Architecture
The foundations of change: Building with mass timber in the tropics
SkyTimber Inno-hub Living Lab © 2026 NUS SkyTimber. All rights reserved.
Tropical plantation timber grows several times faster than its temperate counterparts. Engineered into structural panels and beams, it could turn Southeast Asia’s buildings from carbon sources into carbon stores.
T
Image above SkyTimber Inno-hub Living Lab is a proofof-concept platform for human comfort and longterm timber durability of MET buildings in Southeast Asia’s hot and humid monsoon climate.
he production of concrete, the world’s most widely used construction material, accounts for around 8% of global emissions each year. Together with steel, commonly used to reinforce buildings, the materials make up approximately 16% of embodied carbon emissions in the built environment and are a major source of construction waste.