Building a 9.3-meter wooden tower without a single nail, screw, or dowel? The LEMSC team took on the challenge!

Picture credit : LEMSC

As part of the Memorandum of Understanding on Research and Innovation between the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MOST) – Department of International Cooperation, and Wallonia-Brussels International (WBI), a 2023–2025 collaboration between Tongji University (Shanghai) and UCLouvain (LAB Institute – Prof. Denis Zastavni) resulted in the design, modeling, and realization of a wooden structure assembled without nails, screws, or dowels.

The structure is based exclusively on interlocking joints, thereby enabling the use of wood alone—a fully renewable material with a negative carbon footprint—while ensuring both disassembly and reuse of the structural components.

A 3m × 3m × 9.30m tower was initially constructed at Tongji, dismantled, and subsequently shipped to Belgium for reassembly.

The LEMSC team successfully reconstructed the tower at their facilities, demonstrating their commitment and expertise in support of an original and sustainable research endeavor.