Over 6000 new wooden apartment buildings built in Finland in 30 years
Since 1995, Finland has permitted the construction of wooden apartment buildings with more than two floors, which is a significant step forward in building regulations and practices. By the end of 2024, there were approximately 1.55 million buildings in Finland, and excluding holiday homes and agricultural buildings, residential buildings account for almost 65% of the total gross floor area. Among European countries, Finland ranks second after Spain in apartment building dominance, with almost 47% of Finnish apartments located in apartment buildings. While 35,000–45,000 new apartment buildings are built annually, wooden apartment buildings represent only 1% of the total number of new apartments in apartment buildings.
Summary written and translated by Anu Turunen
By the end of 2024, approximately 200 wooden houses with more than two floors, containing just over 6,000 apartments, had been built in Finland. The use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) in prefabricated construction has gained significant popularity in Finnish wooden construction in recent years, reflecting the growing shift towards industrial wood-based building solutions.
The history of Finnish construction is deeply rooted in wood construction, which has been the dominant building material for a long time, especially for small-scale structures. Almost all leisure buildings in Finland are made of wood, and currently about 90 percent of single-family homes are built of wood. About a third of Finnish single-family home builders currently choose logs as their building material. Wood construction is also becoming more common in public buildings, especially schools and daycare centers, where ensuring a healthy and comfortable indoor environment is a priority.
Frame systems for wooden apartment buildings in Finland
Various structures are used as load-bearing frames for wooden apartment buildings. The first wooden apartment buildings in Finland were built using the American platform technology, in which pre-processed and prefabricated modules of varying degrees are assembled together on the construction site. In modern wooden house construction, larger, more prefabricated building components are preferred.
In general, the spans of wooden houses are relatively modest, typically between 4.5 and 8 meters. In Finland, timber-framed residential buildings mainly have wooden facades, but other facade materials are also used.
CLT has become a widely used building material in recent years. CLT boards are used in load-bearing vertical and transverse structures. In addition, construction techniques that integrate CLT and LVL into spatial elements have been widely used in Finnish wooden apartment building construction. The use of dry, lightweight and highly prefabricated structural elements allows for rapid installation, which significantly reduces construction time on site and thus overall costs.
However, due to transportation restrictions, the standard dimensions of a modular element are typically 4.5 meters (width), 3.0 meters (height) and 13.5 meters (length). In addition, some Finnish residential buildings have been built with a column-beam-ribbed slab system based on LVL technology. This structural approach is relatively advanced and particularly competitive in the construction of 3-4-story wooden houses and office buildings. Glulam is also used in column-beam structures.
The development of the CLT system in Finland was initially led by Stora Enso, which also started LVL production at its Varkaus mill in 2016. Another significant Finnish manufacturer of LVL products is Metsä Wood. Domestic production of CLT began earlier, in December 2014, when the CrossLam mill was established in Kuhmo. There are now two CLT manufacturers in Finland. There are several manufacturers of glulam, the largest of which is Versowood.
Source: ”A Comprehensive Statistical Analysis of Multi-Story Timber Residential Buildings in Finland (1995–2025)” Prof. Dr. Markku Karjalainen ja Dr. Hüseyin Emre Ilgın, Arkkitehtuurin yksikkö, rakennetun ympäristön tiedekunta, Tampereen yliopisto, Tampere, Suomi