Author of the book review: Roman Schaurhofer, Vienna

The construction volume "Commercial Buildings in Clay and Wood - Added Value through Material" was published in 2020 by Sabine Djahanschah of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Federal Foundation for the Environment) at Verlag Detail. The publication, which appeared in book form, deals with the use of the building materials wood and clay in the construction of commercially used buildings. To this end, six buildings with commercial use were analysed in terms of their architectural construction and technical quality features and evaluated with the help of measurements, surveys and life cycle assessments.

The Special price on the topic "Urban development revisited: Prices - Practice - Perspectives" was given to the project Urban development area Stuttgarter Straße, French Quarter in Tübingen. The special prize, which is awarded in parallel to the urban development prize, serves to highlight particularly urgent fields of action in urban development and urban planning. It was awarded on 23.4.2021 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the German Urban Development Prize to contributions that had already been recognised with prizes and awards between 1980 and 2010. The judging of the special prize was very complex, as it had to cover a span of 30 years, i.e. a generation, of the achievements of German urban development that were considered outstanding at the time, and, in retrospect, it had to be based on robust, objective criteria that could adequately reflect the complexity of 30 years of urban development history and 30 years of urban development models.

"The raw material wood is precious. It is therefore important to use it responsibly and in a way that conserves resources," warns Peter Aicher, Chairman of Holzbau Deutschland. Even if wood is affected by environmental influences or the bark beetle, it does not represent an inferior raw material, but has almost identical properties to conventional construction timber. "If the so-called 'calamity wood' has the same structural quality in terms of load-bearing capacity as conventional sawn timber, it can be used without restrictions," explains Aicher. In addition, the wood retains its important function as a CO2 sink, regardless of external impairments.