Encore+ fund’s ‘tree’ house doubles down on carbon

David Ironside, fund manager of LaSalle Investment Management’s Encore Plus fund, provides insight into the 16,000 sq m hybrid timber office building that is being developed in the west end of Munich.

Ironside said that the concept of the TRI (pronounced ‘tree’) Building addresses carbon consumption from two sides: carbon in the construction of the asset; and operational carbon. “As a result there’s a huge energy saving so we expect the energy consumption of the building to be 65% below that of a conventional asset,” Ironside told Real Asset Insight at the recent EXPO Real show in Munich.

When LaSalle Investment Management began to progress the development, the first timber hybrid building in the city, it took time to find people with the relevant skills.

The pre-construction period was longer than usual and demolition is underway on the previous building. “We’re actually sorting out the concrete from the steel, from the aggregates and we’re reusing a lot of the existing building in the new building,” Ironside explained.

“We’ve been able to create the kind of asset that tenants want for the future,” he added.

“With a timber building we can create a lot of embodied carbon, we can create a building which is going to be very appealing to tenants in terms of its energy consumption.”

The timber that will be used in TRI’s construction is harvested from renewable trees, sourced in Germany, within 150 kilometres of the sawmill where they are being processed.

“The parts can be loaded delivered quickly to the site,” Ironside said. “It’s a very efficient construction process, we’re going to have a very energy efficient building. And we’re going to have a building that’s actually going to be sustainable, not just in the construction period, but also for the tenants within the asset.”

The building will be completed by 2024.

Click here to read in-depth article on TRI featured in latest edition of Real Asset Impact