This is a CSS code block that defines the “Guardian Headline Full” font family for use on a website. It includes multiple font-face rules, each specifying a different weight (light, regular, medium, semibold) and style (normal or italic) of the font. The font files are hosted on the Guardian’s asset server, and the code provides fallback formats (WOFF2, WOFF, and TTF) to ensure compatibility across different browsers. The font weights range from 300 (light) to 600 (semibold), with corresponding italic versions for each weight.This text appears to be CSS code, not natural language prose. It defines font styles and layout rules for a webpage. Since it’s technical code, rewriting it into “fluent, natural English” isn’t applicable—it’s already in a precise, standardized format. However, I can provide a plain-English summary of what it does:
The code sets up custom fonts for a website, including various weights and styles of the “Guardian Headline” and “Guardian Titlepiece” fonts, loading them from specific file formats. It also defines responsive layout rules for a content column, adjusting margins and widths based on screen size. For example, on wider screens, it adds left margins, and for certain elements like immersive or showcase content, it adjusts their width and positioning to fit the viewport. The rules ensure that text and embedded elements stay within a readable width (around 620 pixels) on most devices, while allowing larger elements to expand on bigger screens..content__main-column–interactive:before {
border-left: 1px solid #dcdcdc;
z-index: -1;
left: -10px;
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive:before {
border-left: 1px solid #dcdcdc;
left: -11px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom {
margin-top: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
padding-bottom: 12px;
padding-top: 12px;
}
.content__main-column–interactive p + .element-atom {
padding-top: 0;
padding-bottom: 0;
margin-top: 12px;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-inline {
max-width: 620px;
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
figure[data-spacefinder-role=inline].element {
max-width: 620px;
}
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop figcaption:not(.hidden) {
z-index: 6;
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop button[data-link-name*=gu-video-loop] {
align-self: flex-end;
margin-bottom: 40px;
margin-right: 3px;
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop .controls-container div:has(button[data-testid=unmute-icon]),
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop .controls-container div:has(button[data-testid=mute-icon]) {
right: 0;
padding-left: 10px;
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) #caption-button {
z-index: 100;
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) #caption-button {
bottom: 20px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.cinemagraph) .cinemagraph > div {
max-height: unset;
}
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo] {
width: 100%;
max-width: 620px;
display: block;
margin-top: 12px;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo] figure.loop,
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo] figure.loop video {
width: 100%;
height: auto;
max-width: 620px;
margin: 0 auto;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) {
max-width: unset;
margin: 12px 0;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) figure.loop,
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) figure.loop video {
max-width: unset;
margin: 0;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) {
width: 1140px;
margin-left: -180px;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) figure figcaption {
margin-left: 20px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) {
width: 1300px;
margin-left: -260px;
}
}
:root {
–dateline: #606060;
–headerBorder: #dcdcdc;
–captionText: #999;
–captionBackground: hsla(0, 0%, 7%, .72);
–feature: #c70000;
–new-pillar-colour: var(–primary-pillar, var(–feature));
}
:root:root {
–subheading-text: var(–secondary-pillar);
–pullquote-text: var(–secondary-pillar);
–pullquote-icon: var(–secondary-pillar);
–block-quote-text: var(–article-text);
}
:root:root blockquote {
–block-quote-fill: var(–secondary-pillar);
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root:root:not([data-color-scheme=light]) {
–subheading-text: var(–darkmode-pillar);
–pullquote-text: var(–darkmode-pillar);
–pullquote-icon: var(–darkmode-pillar);
}
:root:root:not([data-color-scheme=light]) blockquote {
–block-quote-fill: var(–darkmode-pillar);
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element.element-atom,
.element.element-atom {
padding: 0;
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + .sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + #sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + .element-atom + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column–interactive hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule) + p,
.content__main-column–interactive hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule) + .ad-slot-container + p,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + .sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + #sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + .element-atom + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div hr { … }The first paragraph after a horizontal rule or an element atom should have extra space at the top. This applies to the first paragraph that follows any of these elements, whether it comes directly after the element or after an ad slot container. The same rule applies in different sections of the page, such as the article body, interactive content, comments, and feature sections.
Additionally, the first letter of that first paragraph should be styled in a special way. This styling is applied to the first letter of the paragraph that comes after a horizontal rule or an element atom, whether it’s directly after the element or after an ad slot container. This applies across all the same sections mentioned above.[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+.element-atom+p:first-of-type:first-letter,
[data-gu-name=body] hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter,
[data-gu-name=body] hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+.ad-slot-container+p:first-letter,
#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,
#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,
#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,
#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+.element-atom+p:first-of-type:first-letter,
#feature-body hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter,
#feature-body hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+.ad-slot-container+p:first-letter {
font-family: Guardian Headline, Guardian Egyptian Web, Guardian Headline Full, Georgia, serif;
font-weight: 700;
font-size: 111px;
line-height: 92px;
float: left;
text-transform: uppercase;
box-sizing: border-box;
margin-right: 8px;
vertical-align: text-top;
color: var(–drop-cap, var(–new-pillar-colour));
}
.content__main-column–interactive hr+p,
.content__main-column–interactive hr+.ad-slot-container+p,
#article-body>div hr+p,
#article-body>div hr+.ad-slot-container+p,
.content–interactive>div hr+p,
.content–interactive>div hr+.ad-slot-container+p,
#comment-body hr+p,
#comment-body hr+.ad-slot-container+p,
[data-gu-name=body] hr+p,
[data-gu-name=body] hr+.ad-slot-container+p,
#feature-body hr+p,
#feature-body hr+.ad-slot-container+p {
padding-top: 0;
}
.content__main-column–interactive [data-gu-name=pullquote],
#article-body>div [data-gu-name=pullquote],
.content–interactive>div [data-gu-name=pullquote],
#comment-body [data-gu-name=pullquote],
[data-gu-name=body] [data-gu-name=pullquote],
#feature-body [data-gu-name=pullquote] {
max-width: 620px;
}
#maincontent figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#feature-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#standard-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#comment-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption {
position: static !important;
width: 100%;
max-width: 620px;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
#maincontent figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#feature-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#standard-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#comment-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption {
position: absolute !important;
max-width: 140px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
#maincontent figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#feature-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#standard-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,
#comment-article-container figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption {
max-width: 220px;
}
}
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive {
width: calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));
}
@media (max-width: 71.24em) {
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive {
max-width: 978px;
}
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption {
padding-inline: 10px;
}
}
@media (max-width: 71.24em) and (min-width: 30em) {
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption {
padding-inline: 20px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) and (max-width: 61.24em) {
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive {
max-width: 738px;
}
}
@media (max-width: 46.24em) {
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive {
margin-left: -10px !important;
margin-right: 0 !important;
left: 0;
}
}
@media (max-width: 46.24em) and (min-width: 30em) {
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive {
margin-left: -20px !important;
}
.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption {
padding-inline: 20px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
[data-gu-name=body] figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase,
[data-gu-name=body] .content__main-column–interactive figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase {
margin-left: -160px !important;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
[data-gu-name=body] figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase,
[data-gu-n[body] .content__main-column–interactive figure.element.element–showcase.element-showcase {
margin-left: -240px !important;
}
.furniture-wrapper {
position: relative;
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-column-gap: 20px;
grid-row-gap: 0px;
grid-template-columns: [title-start headline-start meta-start standfirst-start] repeat(5, 1fr) [title-end headline-end meta-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(5, 1fr) [portrait-end];
grid-template-rows: [title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-start] auto [meta-end portrait-end];
}
.furniture-wrapper #headline > div:first-child,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”headline”] > div:first-child,
.furniture-wrapper .headline > div:first-child {
border-top: 1px solid var(–headerBorder);
}
.furniture-wrapper #meta,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”meta”] {
position: relative;
padding-top: 2px;
margin-right: 0;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst .content__standfirst,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst .content__standfirst,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] .content__standfirst {
margin-bottom: 4px;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst ul li,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst ul li,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] ul li {
font-size: 20px;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a,
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst li a,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] li a,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] a {
border-bottom: none;
background-image: none !important;
text-decoration: underline;
text-underline-offset: 6px;
text-decoration-color: var(–headerBorder, #dcdcdc);
text-decoration-thickness: 1px;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a:hover,
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a:hover,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst li a:hover,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a:hover,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] li a:hover,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] a:hover {
text-decoration-color: var(–new-pillar-colour);
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] p:first-of-type {
border-top: 1px solid var(–headerBorder);
padding-bottom: 0;
}
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) and (min-width: 71.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] p:first-of-type {
border-top: unset;
}
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper figure {
margin: 0 0 0 -10px;
}
.furniture-wrapper figure[data-spacefinder-role=”inline”].element {
max-width: 630px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper {
grid-template-columns: [title-start headline-start meta-start] repeat(2, 1fr) [meta-end standfirst-start] repeat(5, 1fr) [title-end headline-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(7, 1fr) [portrait-end];
grid-template-rows: [title-start portrait-start] 80px [title-end headline-start] auto [headline-end standfirst-start meta-start] auto [standfirst-end meta-end portrait-end];
}
.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”meta”]:before {
content: “”;
width: 540px;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
background-color: var(–headerBorder);
height: 1px;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] p {
border-top: unset;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”]:before {
content: “”;
width: 1px;
background-color: var(–headerBorder);
height: 100%;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: .5px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper {
grid-template-columns: [title-start headline-start meta-start] repeat(3, 1fr) [meta-end standfirst-start] repeat(5, 1fr) [title-end headline-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(8, 1fr) [portrait-end];
grid-template-rows: [title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start meta-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-end portrait-end];
}
.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”meta”]:before {
width: 620px;
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”]:before {
/ No additional styles specified /
}
}Here’s the rewritten text in fluent, natural English:
The furniture wrapper styles adjust the layout and appearance of article headers, standfirsts, and media elements. The standfirst section has a small left offset and padding, with a subtle border on the left side. On larger screens, it gets a bit of extra top padding.
Headlines are bold, with a maximum width of 620 pixels and a font size of 32 pixels. On very wide screens, the width narrows to 540 pixels and the font size increases to 50 pixels.
Decorative lines (keyline-4) are hidden on medium and large screens, but when visible, they use a stroke color defined by a CSS variable.
The meta section (which includes social sharing and comments) has no right margin on medium screens. Its borders match the header border color. Some interactive elements within the meta section are hidden.
The main media area is positioned relative to its container, with no top margin and a small bottom margin. On mobile devices, it expands to full viewport width with a negative left margin to align properly. On larger screens, the bottom margin is removed.
Image captions are overlaid at the bottom of the media, with a semi-transparent background and text color. They have a minimum height and include a small icon. The first icon is hidden, while the second is shown with a maximum width. A caption button appears as a circular button in the corner, allowing users to toggle caption visibility.
In dark mode, certain text and link colors are adjusted for better contrast, using specific CSS variables.
Finally, on very wide screens, the main content column has a slightly extended top and bottom border. Headings within this column are limited to a maximum width of 620 pixels.I’m sorry, but I can’t help with rewriting this text as it appears to be CSS code, not natural language prose. Could you provide the text you’d like me to rewrite in fluent, natural English?irst li a:hover, .furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] a:hover, .furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] li a:hover {
border-bottom: none;
text-decoration-color: var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature);
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] p {
color: #dcdcdc;
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] p:first-of-type {
border-top: 1px solid var(–headerBorderColor);
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] p:first-of-type {
border-top: unset;
}
}
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst ul li,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst ul li,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”] ul li {
color: #dcdcdc;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,
.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”standfirst”]:before {
background-color: var(–headerBorderColor);
}
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper:before {
content: “”;
height: 100%;
top: 0;
position: absolute;
background-color: var(–darkBackground);
border-right: 1px solid var(–headerBorderColor);
left: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 738px) / -2);
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 738px) / 2);
}
.furniture-wrapper:after {
content: “”;
height: 100%;
top: 0;
position: absolute;
background-color: var(–darkBackground);
border-left: 1px solid var(–headerBorderColor);
right: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 738px) / -2);
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 738px) / 2);
}
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper:before {
content: “”;
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 978px) / 2);
left: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 978px) / -2);
}
.furniture-wrapper:after {
content: “”;
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 978px) / 2);
right: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 978px) / -2);
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper:before {
content: “”;
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1138px) / 2);
left: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1138px) / -2);
}
.furniture-wrapper:after {
content: “”;
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1138px) / 2);
right: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1138px) / -2);
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.furniture-wrapper:before {
content: “”;
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1298px) / 2);
left: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1298px) / -2);
}
.furniture-wrapper:after {
content: “”;
width: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1298px) / 2);
right: calc((100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px) – 1298px) / -2);
}
}
.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4 svg,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”lines”] svg {
stroke: var(–headerBorderColor);
}
.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social,
.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social ul li a span,
.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__comment,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”meta”] .meta__social,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”meta”] .meta__social ul li a span,
.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=”meta”] .meta__comment {
border-color: var(–headerBorderColor);
}
.article .article__body h2,
article.content–interactive [data-gu-name=”body”] h2 {
font-weight: 200;
}
.article .article__body h2:has(strong),
article.content–interactive [data-gu-name=”body”] h2:has(strong) {
font-weight: 700;
}
div[data-print-layout=”hide”] ul {
background-image: none;
}
:root[data-rendering-target=”apps”] {
–follow-text: #dcdcdc;
–follow-icon-fill: var(–new-pillar-colour);
–standfirst-text: #dcdcdc;
–standfirst-link-text: var(–new-pillar-colour);
–standfirst-link-border: var(–new-pillar-colour);
–byline: var(–new-pillar-colour);
–article-meta-lines: var(–headerBorderColor);
–byline: var(–darkmode-pillar);
}
:root[data-rendering-target=”apps”] .byline > span {
color: var(–new-pillar-colour);
}
:root[data-rendering-target=”apps”] .byline > span > div:has(+[name=”FollowWapper”]) {
background-image: var(–headerBorderColor), var(–headerBorderColor) 1px, transparent 1px;
}
@media (prefers-color-schemeI traveled to Oslo in early autumn, and it felt like stepping into the future—or at least a glimpse of one possible future. I drove north in the quiet, digital bubble of my electric rental car. In 2024, Norway became the first country in the world where electric cars outnumbered petrol cars.
A smooth, pristine motorway stretched out between farmlands and low hills covered in dense green forest. Long tunnels carried the route up above the banks of Lake Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake. After a little over an hour, the road curved downward and ran parallel to the lakeshore.
Through gaps in a line of golden birch trees, a tall, slim structure broke the horizon. It rose from the water’s edge, topped by a triangular crown of bare, interlocking beams. Against the heavy grey sky and the surrounding mist, its pale burnt-orange exterior gave off a gentle warmth. It was the only tall building anywhere in the landscape, known as Mjøstårnet, the “Tower of Mjøsa”: an 18-storey, 277ft (84m) high wooden skyscraper—the tallest all-timber building in the world.
Mjøstårnet sits on a slice of shoreline next to the small town of Brumunddal. It houses offices, apartments, and a 72-room hotel. I was staying on the 11th floor, and I rode up in an elevator shaft made entirely of wood (though the elevator cabin itself was steel and glass).
Two sides of my corner room had large picture windows—one looking west across the lake, the other north along the shore. The floors were wooden, as were the tables and lamps. There was a wooden bed and a pair of low swivel chairs made from thin slats of bent pinewood.
The most striking feature was the huge wooden column that formed both the corner of my room and, extending in segments above and below me, one of the four edge-points of the whole tower. It looked reassuringly sturdy, like the trunk of a massive tree stripped of its bark and shaped into a smooth, organic version of a steel or concrete strut. That’s almost exactly what it was—except it wasn’t just one tree but many: a series of precision-cut timber blocks pressed and held together with extremely strong glue, creating what’s known as mass timber, or glulam (short for “glued laminated timber”).
The piece in my room was the largest of its kind in the building, with a cross-section measuring about 2ft by 5ft (0.6m by 1.5m). Although coated in a pale wax laminate, you could still see the unique knots and whorls running across its composite slices of wood.
Through the window, mist slipped in waves down the forested slopes of the far shore. Gusts of wind blew fine rain against the glass. Inside, there was no sound. The view shifted from white to grey to the encroaching blue of night. Eventually, I settled down to sleep in what I realized was something of a childhood fantasy—a giant treehouse in the sky.
Mjøstårnet began as a sketch on a napkin. Two rectangular boxes drawn in blue ballpoint pen: one lying flat, the other standing on end on top of it. The finished structure isn’t far from that original draft—except the second rectangle kept stretching higher and higher. “Height was very important here,” Arthur Buchardt, the developer who drew the sketch, told me. “It had to be a signal. To show what is possible. And I think now it has made a lot of people wake up.”
I met Buchardt the day after I arrived, on the 18th floor of the tower, where he keeps his own penthouse apartment. Now in his late 70s, he has the look of a Bond villain—tall, broad, vigorously healthy, perfectly bald—and theThe manner of a beloved great-uncle, quick to laugh and full of a bright, youthful energy. We sat at his living room table—wooden, naturally—sipping black coffee and gazing out through the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the entire western side of the penthouse.
All the wood, Buchardt told me, gesturing around the apartment and at the building as a whole, came from the nearby landscape. In the center of the room stood an L-shaped pillar of gray marble with a gas fireplace. That stone, he said, was quarried from the surrounding hills. Even the artwork on the walls was local. “So this was a political statement,” he said. “To use all this local material.”
Buchardt moved to Brumunddal as a boy and spent most of his teenage years there. After earning a business degree—studying at Oslo and Edinburgh universities—he returned to take over his father-in-law’s plumbing company. A few years later, he sold it and used the money to move into property development. Then, when the 1994 Winter Olympics came to Lillehammer and the town needed new housing for athletes and visitors, he built his first hotel. He has built 23 more since, all across Scandinavia. And increasingly, he has built them out of wood.
“About 10 years ago, I had to wake up a little bit myself. About the importance of the environment, about what we are doing to it,” he told me. It was the announcement of the Paris climate agreement in December 2015—with its global promise to cut emissions and move toward net zero—that pushed Buchardt into action. “Politicians talked about the need for a ‘great green change.’ And I thought, how can I respond to those political signals?” All he really knew how to do was make buildings. But what if he made them differently?
“It was right then, in 2015, that I put some drawings on this napkin. And I took it to an architect”—the Trondheim-based firm Voll Arkitekter—”and asked them, ‘How big is it possible to go with a high-rise wooden building?’ Because you can’t make large modern structures entirely without steel or concrete. But you can reduce how much you use. You can reduce that a lot.”
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The view from the top of Mjøstårnet. Photograph: 360Cities.net/Alamy
This is the thing about concrete. Not only is the world running short of the sand needed to make it—and having to consider extreme alternatives to meet demand, from crushing entire mountaintops to dredging Greenland’s silt-filled fjords—but its increasing use also creates spiraling feedback loops. The built environment accounts for 37% of all global emissions, from both the construction process itself and the energy needed to heat, light, and maintain buildings over time. Between 7 and 8% of these total emissions come from concrete manufacturing alone. Since 1960, concrete use in construction has grown tenfold. Less than 1% of this concrete is made from recycled materials. Instead, we just keep producing more and more of it, requiring more and more sand—a projected 50% more by 2060 worldwide.
In effect, almost all of our modern towns and cities are built from materials that have been extracted, smelted, superheated, or synthesized through heavy use of fossil energy. Cities are, literally, monuments to extraction and emissions—the concentrated expressions of mining, burning, melting, sintering, and molding the Earth’s mineral contents. It would be hard to invent a more efficient machine for emitting CO2 if you tried.
But what if you imagined replacing the superstructure of our homes, workplaces, and offices—even our high-rises—with wood? Trees take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it in their bodies. Cut them down, and they keep the CO2 rather than releasing it. Build with them, and they still hold that carbon. When you build a typical mid-rise building out of steel and concrete, its constructionA single building generates around 1,500 to 2,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The same building, if made from wood, can sequester anywhere from 600 to 1,000 metric tons of CO2. And that’s before accounting for the extra absorption from planting and regrowing the harvested trees. For just one building, the difference is striking. What about an entire city? You turn dense population centers—some of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases—into massive carbon sinks. You flip the equation, making buildings part of the solution rather than the problem. You move from a mineral-based construction economy, which relies on depleting finite resources, to one that’s forest-based and endlessly renewable. Wood becomes an urban antidote to sand, steel, and cement. From the concrete jungle to the timber city.
That, at least, is the vision. The reality, of course, isn’t so straightforward. Right now, for instance, building with mass timber is expensive. Mjøstårnet cost around £100 million. The same tower, built entirely from steel and concrete, would have been £10 to £15 million cheaper.
Much of this, however, comes down to perspective. Studies on the knock-on effects of global concrete production estimate that the damage it causes to health and the environment has a measurable financial value—one that’s nearly equal to, or by some estimates even greater than, the value of the entire concrete industry itself. A shifting, climate-focused economics can quickly change what counts as cost-effective. So can transparency about environmental impacts. “Ten years ago, I didn’t check the CO2 footprint of a car,” Buchardt told me. “No one was that interested. Now the first thing you look at is the CO2. And I think that’s how it will go with buildings.”
As he put it, “We’ll look at a certificate for each building, and you’ll see its CO2 emissions, its energy use, what it’s made of. You’ll look at a particular hotel and say, you know, there’s steel, there’s glass, it’s using so much electricity, it’s like a beacon of emissions, so you won’t stay there. Meanwhile, those with low-carbon buildings will go to market and tell you about it. Maybe it starts as a marketing tool, but then it becomes a standard.”
Brumunddal and the surrounding district of Ringsaker have always been logging country. Earlier that morning, before meeting Buchardt, I visited the sawmill and factory of Moelven, a local company that’s grown into one of Scandinavia’s largest wood processors and supplied the materials for Mjøstårnet.
The head of its building systems division, Rune Abrahamsen, showed me the glulam production line. He led me from huge warehouses of freshly sawn timber, stacked in neat piles like bundles of giant matchsticks, to a factory floor where computer systems cut, bent, pressed, and glued the wood into any shape a client needed. Everywhere smelled of pine and spruce. Finally, we reached a loading bay about the size of an aircraft hangar, where finished glulam beams wrapped in blue tarp waited for transport across the country.
Rune worked as the structural engineer on Mjøstårnet—tasked with turning Buchardt’s napkin sketch into a solid reality. “To be honest,” he said, “my first thought when Buchardt called me about this project was, ‘Is he messing with me, or is he serious?'”
Rune has always been passionate about timber construction. When he was a student in the 1990s, he said, everyone focused on designing structures in concrete, steel, and aluminum. “And very few people were studying or searching for solutions in wood. I thought, why do I need to be like all the other 250 students I’m graduating with? Let’s try something else.”
He first began working with glulamAbout 30 years ago, the idea itself was actually more than a century old. The basic concept—cutting up logs and gluing them back together to make them stiffer and stronger—hasn’t changed. What has changed is the technology: the precision and speed with which wood can now be shaped and handled.
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Glulam being manufactured in Germany. Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
But building high—as high as Buchardt wanted Mjøstårnet to go—was something no one had tried before. Rune explained that timber buildings are very light compared to concrete and steel structures. “And remember that buildings are vertical cantilevers. So when the wind blows at the top, it multiplies the forces, creating horizontal accelerations higher up.” He compared it to being in the crow’s nest at the top of a ship’s mast. Down on the deck, you might only feel the gentle rocking of the sea. But up on the mast, every pitch and roll becomes hugely amplified. Structurally, the wood can handle these forces easily—but the people actually staying on the higher floors might not.
To dampen the sway and avoid the risk of “sea sickness,” they had to weigh the building down. In the end, they laid layers of concrete on the decks of the upper floors. This was a fraction of what most tall tower blocks would use, and the minimum needed to meet “comfort” standards, but it was still there nonetheless.
For the construction itself, they used a novel and untested assembly technique. The hundreds of glulam beams, columns, and trusses that formed the superstructure were processed and shaped to millimetre accuracy at a nearby factory, then transported individually to the site without any trial fitting. In effect, Mjøstårnet was like a flat-pack skyscraper, its simple timber skeleton rising rapidly piece by piece and floor by floor—at a rate of almost one floor per week—all installed by a tower crane, with no need for external scaffolding. It was far faster than building with concrete.
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Mjøstårnet under construction. Photograph: Øystein Elgsaas
With an all-timber structure, Rune said, there’s one question everyone asks: What if it catches fire? From the spark that ignited and consumed the “forest” of roof beams in Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019 to the great fires in cities throughout history, wood’s ability to burn is a major reason it has been largely phased out as a modern urban building material.
“Most people would think that this is a catastrophic thing to do,” Rune said, “to build such a tall timber building. But probably it is about the most fire-safe building in Norway.” The glulam had to undergo rigorous testing. “We made samples that we took to a fire laboratory in Trondheim. We burnt the glulam columns—and they do burn, but eventually they stop burning. It’s like if you go to the woods and make a bonfire and put a big log on late in the night. You go to sleep, and then the next morning, everything around the outside of the log is gone—the bark and such—and the log itself is deeply charred, but it’s still solid. So if a column in the building burns, it chars the surface, but that charring protects the inside—and it is still strong enough to carry the load of the building.”
In this respect, Mjøstårnet has received a rather ringing endorsement. Norway’s largest insurance company insures the building—and also takes up two of its office floors. “You can prove as an engineer and a manufacturer that something is going to be safe,” Rune said, “but you need to have the insurance company with you.”
If you want to scale up the number of mass-timber buildings to replace concrete and steel, you have to substantially increase the number of trees you cut down. The wood for Mjøstårnet was produced by harvesting more than 16,000 spruce and pine trees from the forests that surround Brumunddal. Given that the world has lost one-third of its forests since the e…By the end of the last ice age, half of that loss happened in just the last hundred years. So it’s no surprise that for some people, the idea of cutting down even more trees is worrying. In 2018, a group of US environmental organizations wrote an open letter to the mayor of Portland, Oregon, warning that the growing demand for mass timber “may provide a perverse incentive to shorten logging rotations and more aggressively clearcut.”
Rune, for his part, seemed very aware of this tension. “For wood to be a good part of the solution, you need to take into consideration that you’re not harvesting more from the forest than actually grows back.” Right now, he said, for every tree they cut down, they plant two more.
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A rendering of the planned W350 tower in Tokyo. Photograph: Sumitomo Forestry Co
“Here, in our part of Scandinavia, it takes about 80 years for a tree to grow. But we have enormous amounts of forest. So, even though our industry has expanded a lot in recent years, we’re still only harvesting about 30% of the annual growth. We’re still getting more and more trees, even though we are harvesting more. There’s a big scalability within the resource right now.”
This, ultimately, was Buchardt’s goal with Mjøstårnet – to make it “just the beginning of bigger wooden buildings.” He said he was already working on an even taller all-wood building in Sweden. At the same time, the urban developer Atrium Ljungberg had recently announced the construction of Stockholm Wood City, a new 250,000 square metre neighbourhood of offices, homes, shops, and apartments, all made from timber. In Winterthur, Switzerland, the 100-metre-tall wooden “Rocket” apartment block is soon to appear on the skyline, while in Perth, Western Australia, a project is underway to almost double that height, with a 191-metre-high “half-wood” tower.
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A rendering of Atrium Ljungberg’s Stockholm Wood City proposal. Illustration: White Arkitekter/Atrium Ljungberg
Similar developments are popping up all across Europe, North America, and Asia. The most ambitious of all is the Japanese timber company Sumitomo Forestry’s master plan for a 350-metre-high wooden skyscraper. When completed, sometime around 2041, it will become not only the tallest wooden building in the world (by a long way) but also the tallest building of any kind in Japan.
Buchardt was going to Helsinki the following week to give a speech. He opened his notebook – he said he avoids using computers if at all possible – and showed me the title he had chosen, written out in English: “How difficult is it to make things easy?” It was going to be about Mjøstårnet and wood – about using local materials, local people, and local expertise. More broadly, I asked, was it about climate change? We know the basic equation; we know what drives emissions – we know that extraction underpins all of our lives. That’s easy. What we don’t seem to know, fundamentally, is how to change that.
In response, he took me to the corridor of the penthouse and showed me a framed original manuscript by a famous Norwegian poet, author, and musician, Alf Prøysen, who was born near Brumunddal in 1914. It included some lines from Prøysen’s most celebrated folk song, A Day Tomorrow. Buchardt offered me a rough translation. “You shall have a day tomorrow,” he said, “that stands clean and unused; with blank white sheets and fresh new crayons; and you can correct the errors of the day before; and you’ll face tomorrow’s evening with joy.”
The sentiment is clear. That there is always a chance to start anew, to make amends, to try again. Either in your own life, or from one generation to the next. The problem now, of course, is that the sheet is not blank, nor clean nor unused. It bears the inky stain of the last few centuries – the still-fast-accumulating, unerasable errors of the day before.
Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth
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Later that afternoon, I drove to the far side of the lake and hiked up through an old forest.of spruce and Scots pine. From a clearing at the top of the hill, I could see Mjøstårnet on the far shore—soft, wooden, rooted. A tower designed to capture the essence of this landscape. Or at least, this landscape as it is right now.
Rune mentioned that Norway’s forest environment was changing. As temperatures rose, the treeline was creeping higher up the mountain slopes, opening up more space for growth. But at the same time, they were seeing more landslides and wildfires. Warmer weather was also bringing new species and insects into the region, including spruce beetles, which can devastate large areas of forestry.
Maybe the reason it’s “hard to make things simple” is that we’re always trying to anchor ourselves in a fixed place and time, while the environment—eroding, expanding, warming, shrinking—keeps shifting around us. This is true for sand, forests, deserts, ice, and glaciers alike. When we build, we think we’re planning for the future. But in reality, we’re always drawing on the past. We make our homes from trees that are centuries old or sand that’s millennia old, all powered by fossils that are eons old.
Adapted from The Vanishing Earth: A Journey Through the Last Days of Abundance, which will be published by Scribe on 10 September.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about flatpack skyscrapers and timber construction ranging from beginner to advanced
General Basics
1 What exactly is a flatpack skyscraper
Its a building made from prefabricated timber components that are cut and prepared in a factory shipped to the site like a giant flatpack furniture kit and then assembled onsite like LEGO bricks
2 Why are people suddenly talking about building skyscrapers out of wood
Mainly for the environment Concrete and steel production create massive amounts of CO2 Timber is renewable stores carbon and is now strong enough to build tall
3 Isnt wood a fire hazard How can it be safe for a skyscraper
It sounds counterintuitive but large engineered timber is actually very fireresistant When it burns the outside chars and forms a protective layer that insulates the core keeping the structure stable for hoursoften longer than steel which can melt and buckle
4 What is mass timber or engineered timber
Its the umbrella term for superstrong wood products Instead of using natural logs they glue nail or press layers of wood together The two most common types are CLT and Glulam
Benefits Performance
5 How does timber actually help fight climate change
Trees absorb CO2 as they grow When you use that wood in a building you are literally locking that carbon away for the life of the building Plus manufacturing timber uses far less energy than manufacturing steel or concrete
6 Is a wooden skyscraper lighter than a concrete one
Yes significantly Timber is about 5 times lighter than concrete but has a comparable strengthtoweight ratio This means you need smaller cheaper foundations which is a huge cost saver
7 How fast can they build these
Much faster than traditional construction Because parts are precut in a factory with precision theres no cutting or welding onsite A timber highrise can be assembled in months rather than years saving massive amounts of labor and
