Trondheim is known as the original Viking capital of Norway, and today, it’s a place where creativity and innovation are fused together to deliver great events, exciting places to explore and cutting-edge advancements that are globally acclaimed.

Lillehammer has its own place in the heart of many sports enthusiasts, thanks to the 1994 Winter Olympics. The town has both traditional wooden buildings and large contemporary wooden constructions.

The traditional mountain village of Røros is one of the oldest towns of wooden buildings in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Trondheim is bustling with youth and fresh ideas, a booming tech community, and cutting edge start-up incubators and coworking spaces. This is due in large part to being the home of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the largest university in Norway. Through its strategic research in areas such as energy, health, oceans, and sustainability, NTNU addresses many challenges of great importance to society. And the young minds of the 40,000 student body play a large role in facilitating a myriad of enriching cultural events and activities throughout the city.

Trondheim has it all. Situated on a fjord, Trondheim offers a vibrant city experience along with stunning natural surroundings. In summer, you can venture just beyond the city’s edges in Bymarka. This scenic area is ideal for hiking, mountain biking or cross-country skiing in the winter months, with an array of marked trails criss-crossing the reserve, leading to spectacular viewpoints, charming rest areas and cosy cabins offering food and refreshments. And if you want to venture out onto the fjord, take a boat trip to the islands if Hitra to taste some of the world’s best seafood.

Røros came into existence in 1644, after the first copper discovery in the area. The people of Røros have preserved the town’s original charm, with houses dating back to the 1700s and 1800s, as well as the surrounding cultural landscape. In 1980, the mining town of Røros was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

In 2010, the World Heritage site was expanded to include the surrounding area, which is called the Circumference.

A guided tour where you get to hear more about the history behind this charming wooden town, the people who lived here and how the city has evolved through preservation and modernization

Lillehammer is situated in the lower part of the Gudbrandsdal valley, at the northern end of lake Mjøsa.

In 2017, the city was named UNESCO City of Literature, and each year you can experience the Norwegian Literature Festival. In the charming and historic buildings of Lillehammer there is a modern shopping district with several specialty shops and a great selection of everything from cozy cafes to quality restaurants.

The slowly changing landscape with its towering mountains is a memorable experience. 2,000 metre-high summits in a singular landscape decked in blinding white snow, the low sun sun reflecting on the glittering snow, the bluish light. The quiet tranquility. The area, with its distinctive geology along the first national park in Norway, offers experiences and inspiration at an easy-going pace. On the tour, we stop at Spidsbergseter Resort Rondane for lunch.

The tour continues northeast to Røros, the mining town with UNESCO status

Rondane National Park was established in 1962 and expanded in 2003. The national park itself is 963 square kilometers. If we consider Rondane and Dovre National Parks and their adjacent protected landscapes as one, we have a protected belt running from Ringebufjellet in the south to Hjerkinn at Dovrefjell in the north. Rondane is characterized by the deep valley bottoms and high peaks, and Rondslottet and Storronden mountains are perhaps the most famous.

The tower has also received numerous awards and recognitions, such as the New York Design Awards, Norwegian Tech Awards and CTBUH’s Award of Excellence. The visit is organised by Norwegian Wood Cluster (NWC)

Text description by the architects: Mjøstårnet is the first time in history that something like this has been constructed on this scale. It’s also, the first time in history that the materials and the expertise have been sourced locally. Our client says that standing on top of the viewing platform of Mjøstårnet, you can “actually see” where the timber comes from and where it was processed. And that’s part of our sustainable movement being put into practice. Together with our client and constructor, we began to sketch out the project in early 2015.

Together with our Gold sponsor Moelven Limtre, Norway’s leading glulam manufacturer and the specialists at Sweco, the engineering company, the team came together, to construct an 18-floor building between 80 to 90 meters high in Brumunddal. The result is the world’s tallest timber building according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Achieving this required an unparalleled level of skill amongst those who participated, and it is the interaction and cooperation between all the remarkable people that made this record possible.

Moelven Limtre
Located only 17 km north of Mjøstårnet, Moelven Limtre played a key role in the construction of the tower. The company produced and installed glulam columns, beams and diagonals for the primary load bearing system. CLT was used for elevator shafts and balconies, and Trä8 deck slabs were used for the floors up to level 11.

The company currently has capacity in precut and element of up to 600 homes and various commercial buildings a year. In addition, they produce approximately 30,000 roof trusses annually. The company has 130 employees and had a turnover of more than NOK 318 million in 2021. Head office and production are located at Støren in Midtre Gauldal, but the company also has branch offices in Trondheim and in the Oslo area.

The company is part of the cluster development project WoodWorks! Cluster, which focuses on innovation and development for more use of wood in buildings.

The project reflects Trondheim municipality’s ambitious environmental commitment and, in addition to the extensive use of solid wood, must satisfy requirements for a fossil-free building site, BREEAM and passive houses. Trondheim municipality has conducted a turnkey tender with negotiations for the construction of a new Huseby primary and secondary school

From the first floor to the 9th floor the entire structure consists of prefabricated CLT-elements, while the basement and ground floor levels are in-situ cast reinforced concrete. Elevator shafts and stairwells are also constructed in CLT.

In the original competition proposal the towers were envisioned built with conventional construction methods; a steel and concrete structure with a brick cladding. The latter in order to harmonize with the existing low-rise student housing with redbrick facades. To meet the project’s ambitious energy and climate goals the project team researched the possibility of turning the structures into cross-laminated timber constructions (CLT). The towers, with their relatively short spans and Y-shape volumes, were in many ways statically optimal for CLT-construction.

The project is built according to the Norwegian passive house standard. The greenhouse gas emissions related to the production of building materials was reduced by 57 % compared to traditional construction methods. The houses are heated and cooled by geothermal energy. The project was nominated to the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017, and received the Norwegian Wood Construction Prize and the Trondheim Energy Prize in 2016.

The residential area will be a car-free zone, including 38 acres of green space with townhouses and apartment blocks.

Both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning systems are constructed from timber. An all-timber structure may include the use of localized non-timber connections between timber elements. Note that a building of timber construction with a floor system of concrete planks or concrete slab on top of timber beams is still considered an “all-timber” structure as the concrete elements are not acting as the primary structure.

The residential building Maskinparken TRE became the winner of the Norwegian Wood Award for 2018. The jury’s statement included the following: ‘The project is the largest KL-wood (massive wood) dwelling project in Norway. It has shown the application of innovative solutions in combination with high architectural qualities and ambitious environmental goals.’
The project meets the Norwegian Passive House standard, and achieved a 39% reduction in emissions from construction materials compared to a standard house.

NTNU has the main national responsibility for education and research in engineering and technology, and is the successor of Norway’s preeminent engineering university, the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH), established by Parliament in 1910 as Norway’s national engineering university. In addition to engineering and natural sciences, the university offers higher education in other academic disciplines ranging from medicine, psychology, social sciences, the arts, teacher education, architecture and fine art.

NTNU is well known for its close collaboration with industry, and particularly with its R&D partner SINTEF, which provided it with the biggest industrial link among all the technical universities in the world.[6] The university’s academics include three Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine: Edvard Moser, May-Britt Moser and John O’Keef

The Department of Structural Engineering (KT) conducts research and education in designing, calculating, and dimensioning structures on land and offshore. KT has special responsibility for concrete technology, and we are continuously building expertise in the disciplines of bio- and nanomechanics. We work with all kinds of strains on different constructions in various environments.

The ZEB Laboratory is a full-scale office building where building façades, components and technical systems can be modified and replaced. The elements may furthermore be interconnected in such a way that they form a part of or a complete zero emission building. The building will form a living laboratory, i.e. a laboratory where people using it as an ordinary office building or for educational purposes becomes an experimental parameter giving variations in loads with their use of the premises.

Further, investigations and demonstration of new technologies in a full-scale office building is important to reduce risk for the first movers willing and starting to implement zero emission building levels in their building design and construction. The adaptability of the building/laboratory will make it possible to investigate different building configurations and types.