SAWA Rotterdam:
Circular high-rise residential building – made of timber

On 18 November, none other than Her Majesty Queen Máxima opened the SAWA apartment complex in Rotterdam, for which DERIX was responsible for structural engineering and detailed design, production, delivery and assembly of the timber construction. On the same day, this innovative project was named the overall winner of the Dutch Wood Construction Award. It comes as no surprise that SAWA is being celebrated by all, as this pioneering project is the first circular high-rise building made of wood in Europe!

SAWA is 55 metres high and owes its name to its unique design, which features green terraces that slope down in steps – just like the rice fields in Indonesia. This design references the history of the location, Rotterdam’s Lloydpier, from which passenger ships sailed to Asia between 1900 and 1970. SAWA is a project by Nice Developers and ERA Contour and was designed by Mei Architects. They made a conscious decision to minimise the use of concrete and steel. Instead, a lot of wood was used.

DERIX was responsible for statics and construcion planning, production, delivery and assembly of the timber construction and, as a timber specialist, was involved in the project at an early stage. ‘A building as tall as SAWA, constructed almost entirely from wood, has never been built in the Netherlands before,’ explains Johan Paul Borreman, Managing Director of DERIX Netherlands. ‘We have done some real pioneering work here and worked together as a construction team to realise this 16-storey residential tower in the best possible way.’

The SAWA structure consists of X-LAM floors and walls as well as laminated columns and beams, which store around 2,500 tonnes of CO₂. This makes SAWA extremely sustainable. The flexible column-beam structure allows the apartments to be easily adapted to changing living requirements. The façades are constructed using timber frame construction and clad with spruce panels. Almost all of the timber remains visible. Thanks to more than 750,000 mechanical connections without adhesives or permanent fastenings, SAWA can be completely dismantled and reused in the future – a first for tall timber buildings in Europe.

SAWA is an inspiring example of the future of construction. It proves that timber construction can be sustainable and circular even in very tall, multi-storey buildings.