Sustainable Mass Timber Structures—Selected Issues in the Structural Shaping of Tall Buildings

The subject of this article is tall buildings with a load-bearing layout made of mass timber, erected between 2009 and 2025. The aim of the study is to introduce a typology and to systematise and synthesise knowledge concerning the spatial and material–structural shaping of the load-bearing systems of these buildings. Load-bearing systems were classified according to the type of elements into 1D, 2D, 3D, mixed and hybrid. It was found that the most common types of mass timber tall building construction are 1D, accounting for 47% of the buildings analysed, and 2D accounting for 23%, with the remaining 3D (4%), hybrid (3%) and mixed (1%) used infrequently. A research method based on a case study and data collection with an analysis of the available literature was used. A study of the spatial and material and structural solutions of 109 timber tall buildings was carried out. Conclusions are presented for the most sustainable in terms of material solution, i.e., with an above-ground part made entirely of mass timber in the buildings which represents 10% of the cases studied. Mass timber tall buildings have a low slenderness of 0.66–2.98 for heights up to 50 m and 2.41–4.97 for heights over 50 m.