Glass, timber and adhesive joints – Innovative load bearing building components

•A glass/timber beam has a rather ductile failure.•A shear wall unit of glass and timber could be used in 3–4 storey buildings.•Environmental impact of a glass/timber wall unit is similar to a triple pane IGU.•A glass/timber wall unit could fulfil passive house criteria. Structural glass–timber composite beams and shear wall elements were investigated in terms of their mechanical behaviour, energy performance and their LCA performance. The load bearing components were manufactured using annealed float glass which was adhesively bonded to the timber with different adhesives. The results show, among other things, that is is possible to join the two materials glass and timber and obtaining a non-brittle failure of the beams. The shear wall elements have the potential of being used as stabilising elements and load bearing walls in buildings of up to 4 storeys height. It is possible to combine glass and timber in a load bearing shear wall without loss of energy performance of a building or without loosing LCA performance. In addition to these benefits, the timber glass composite wall has, of course the benefit of being transparent.