Competition in the Nordic countries for becoming the leading city for wooden house construction
Wooden houses have become politically “in”. The Norwegian cities Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger are competing for the title of leading wooden house constructor in the Nordic countries.

New technology, more stringent environment conservation provisions, energy saving building methods and improved construction have made wood a competitive alternative in the building industry.
However, the main problem for Norwegian cities that wish to make big investments in wood based architecture is the shortage in Norway of know-how for building large wooden houses. In today’s situation you have to go to Eastern Europe or to Russia to find that kind of expertise.
A seminar in Bergen, attended by representatives of the three competing cities, made it clear that co-operation is the right way to proceed. At present Trondheim is most advanced in research and technology, Stavanger is best on environment and energy, whereas Bergen is the leader in respect of design and architecture. They all believe that by benefiting from the other cities’ top level expertise they can create the preconditions for re-establishing the three cities as leading players in respect of wooden construction.
 Major new investments in wooden architecture will also result in new jobs for the regional wood processing industry. At the moment most of the wooden materials used by the Norwegian building industry are imported. However, vastly improved new technology goes far towards making such imports superfluous. Optimists see a new spring budding for the wood processing industry along the Norwegian coastline.