By the E4 outside Jönköping, property company Catena has completed a new logistics facility of 91,000 square metres, equivalent to 13 football pitches. The load-bearing structure is made of glulam and consists of 500 catenary beams that are 24 metres long and nearly two metres high.
“It's been a fantastically fun and rewarding project. It's not necessarily more complicated than smaller projects. It's about scaling up and drawing everything a bit bigger than usual,” says Erik Johansson, head of structural engineering at Moelven Töreboda.
The timber structure provides a modern and bright working environment whilst contributing to a lower climate impact than an equivalent structure in steel. Weather, and particularly wind, have been the major challenges in the project, explains Erik Johansson.
“When the surfaces of walls and roofs become this large, the wind loads also become enormous. That's something we've taken into account when making our calculations.”
Timber from sawmills in Värmland and Dalarna, Sweden
The spruce timber for the glulam lamellae comes from sawmills in Värmland and Dalarna, and has been glued together in Moelven's factory in Töreboda. The finished structural components have then been delivered to the Torsvik industrial area.
“Logistics has been another major challenge. Both getting everything into the glulam production in Töreboda and delivering it to the construction site.”
Elgiganten's new warehouse and logistics hall is expected to create up to 600 new jobs in Jönköping.
Text: Gustav Schön Photo: Catena
