{"id":32430,"date":"2026-02-05T19:45:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=32430"},"modified":"2026-02-05T19:45:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:45:52","slug":"think-vertical-timber-finds-its-place-at-milano-cortina-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/think-vertical-timber-finds-its-place-at-milano-cortina-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Think Vertical! Timber Finds its Place at Milano\u2011Cortina Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hours out from the Opening Ceremony, the Milano\u2011Cortina Winter Games are set to become the most geographically scattered Olympics in history. And with events spread across two host cities and four Alpine clusters, organisers have relied heavily on existing infrastructure, leaving the Games without a central hub and forcing spectators to make tough choices about what they can see. And with up to half a million visitors expected to pour into northern Italy over the coming weeks, developers have spent the past year racing to get \u201cGames\u2011ready\u201d for the surge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"YU_LSwW5f0w\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Milano Cortina 2026 most spread out Winter Olympics of all time\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YU_LSwW5f0w?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>The Milano-Cortina Winter Games are the most spread-out Winter Olympics ever, which poses unique challenges for moving both athletes and fans around. But because of costs and climate change, this kind of geography may become more common. Footage courtesy of CBCNews.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/think-vertical-extensions-could-solve-brisbanes-olympic-puzzle\/\">Last year<\/a>, Wood Central spoke exclusively with Gianluigi Traetta and Florian Hitthaler of RubnerHolzbau Srl, one of Europe\u2019s largest mass\u2011timber fabricators, who said the run\u2011up to the Games had triggered a wave of vertical extensions across Milan and surrounding regions, as building owners tapped lightweight engineered\u2011timber systems to expand accommodation capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTimber is the perfect solution for these projects,\u201d Traetta said, noting that mass\u2011timber technologies allow developers to add new levels to existing buildings without major structural reinforcement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>\u201cThe most important advantage is its lightness. In most cases, we do not need to reinforce the foundations. Sometimes we have to work in very constrained areas and be as quick as possible because you bring disruption to the people living there, so the fast\u2011paced nature of construction is also a major advantage.\u201d<\/p><cite>Gianluigi Traetta \u2013 Technical Sales Engineer for Rubner Holzbau Srl \u2013 on the potential for vertical extensions.<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"KLXqoiPV8qM\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"2026 Olympic Village in Milan\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KLXqoiPV8qM?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Developed by COIMA and designed by SOM, the project was delivered in 30 months and ahead of schedule. Together, it will provide housing for athletes during the Games, along with 40,000 square meters of community spaces, landscaped courtyards, and three sports courts.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/milans-athletes-village-clicks-into-place-just-in-time-for-the-games\/\">It comes after Wood Central revealed last month<\/a> that Milan\u2019s Athletes\u2019 Village \u2014 the only permanent venue built for the Games \u2014 was delivered 30 days ahead of schedule using factory\u2011made modular units built around mass\u2011timber elements. Whilst at the same time,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pefc.org\/news\/pefc-certified-wood-at-heart-of-2026-winter-olympics-construction\"> PEFC International on Monday<\/a> revealed that large volumes of PEFC-certified local timber have been used in the retrofit of the Fabio Canal Cross-Country Ski Stadium, which will host the cross-country skiing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>To learn more about the push to use vertical extensions, <a href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/think-vertical-extensions-could-solve-brisbanes-olympic-puzzle\/\">click here for Wood Central&#8217;s from last year.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hours out from the Opening Ceremony, the Milano\u2011Cortina Winter Games are set to become the most geographically scattered Olympics in history. And with events spread across two host cities and four Alpine clusters, organisers have relied heavily on existing infrastructure, leaving the Games without a central hub and forcing spectators to make tough choices about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"default","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"default","_google_business_share_type":"default","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[3,38,37,35,48,68,31],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":{"0":"post-32430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-architecture","8":"category-architecture-and-design","9":"category-building-and-construction","10":"category-case-studies","11":"category-mid-rise-construction","12":"category-sector","13":"category-top-stories"},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jason","display_name":"Jason Ross","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32433,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32430\/revisions\/32433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32430"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=32430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}