Construction of multi-apartment residential buildings made of wood may begin in Russia

The first wooden apartment buildings up to five stories high may appear in our country within the next year. This was reported by Vladimir Koshelev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Public Utilities.

For now, firefighters are conducting additional tests of wooden building structures for fire resistance - and, according to the parliamentarian, the results indicate good prospects. Fire safety regulations remain the main barrier: today, they are actually blocking the development of multi-story wooden housing construction.

Similar buildings are being actively built around the world: they are environmentally friendly, comfortable to live in, and even surpass traditional materials in seismic resistance. However, as experts note, mass housing construction in this segment will not begin immediately - first, the population must be convinced of the complete safety of such houses.

At the first stage, wooden technologies may be in demand in the construction of hotels, office buildings, and suburban residential complexes with urban infrastructure. Let us recall that the first four-story residential building in Russia made of CLT panels was built by Segezha Group in 2022 in the Vologda region: the project with an area of ​​6 thousand m² was completed in just six months.

As we reported earlier, high-rise wooden housing construction in Russia became possible in 2019, when the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation approved the relevant standards. In 2022, a roadmap for the development of wooden housing construction was developed, fire tests of CLT panels were conducted in the summer of 2024, and scientific research and experimental design work began in the fall of the same year.