Instead of concrete jungles could our cities become urban forests of wooden skyscrapers?

Swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world.

Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17-story and 20-story buildings that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete.

“We think we can go higher than 30 stories,” says Green. “We stopped exploring wood around 100 years ago (with the advent of steel and concrete); now we’re looking at a whole new system using mass timber products.”

Via CNN