Katerra Receives $865 Million To Fund Massive CLT Plant

by | Apr 4, 2018 | News

Katerra, a high-tech construction firm, has secured $865 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund. That money will go toward ongoing projects in the U.S., like the company’s planned cross-laminated timber plant in Washington, as well as research and development activities.

Katerra says its upcoming 250,000-square-foot Washington plant will help scale up U.S. production of CLT so that the material can be more broadly adopted across the construction industry. Katerra’s manufacturing presence in the region will provide hundreds of jobs and stimulate additional jobs through the larger supply chain and associated industries, including design, engineering, and construction. More than 150 construction-specific jobs will be created to build the CLT factory.

Cross-laminated timber, or CLT, is a key ingredient in the so-called timber towers – multi-story high rises built of wood, some reaching 18 stories or higher. Katerra says CLT is valued due to its low carbon footprint and strength.

“CLT… is a material that creates beautiful spaces, is designed for manufacturing, and is sustainable all at the same time,” said Michael Marks, chairman and co-founder of Katerra. “This material represents a great opportunity to create new value within the construction industry and will be central to many of the projects we’ll be designing and building. We feel very comfortable and excited, particularly with the knowledgeable team we have, to make the jump into manufacturing mass timber. We are ready to help bring mass timber to the mainstream of U.S. construction.”

Katerra is already applying its high-tech construction techniques to manufacture building sections in an existing Phoenix factory, in processes similar to auto plants. The Phoenix plant uses CR Onsrud and Laguna machinery, and fabricates rooms and building sections, including cabinetry, plumbing and wiring.

From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/katerra-receives-865-million-fund-massive-cross-laminated-timber?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news,canadian_news

The Old Is New Again With Nail Laminated Timber

by | Nov 30, 2015 | News

We get so excited about Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), the fancy plywood on steroids that we talk so much about on TreeHugger. But in fact, there is a much older technology for building with wood, that warehouses and factories were built out of 150 years ago with a fancy new name: Nail-Laminated Timber, or NLT. It used to be known as heavy timber or mill decking and is drop-dead simple: you just nail a pile of lumber together and voila.

Lucas Epp of Structurecraft stunned the audience in a presentation at the Wood Solutions Fair in Toronto, showing extraordinary projects built out of the stuff. Because while CLT is great stuff, it’s pretty new in North America, it’s expensive, and it’s not fully understood by the building inspectors. Whereas if you are doing a simple span, NLT does the job just fine, it’s a lot cheaper, can be made by anyone with a hammer and has been in the building codes forever.

It’s now being used in a 210,000 square foot, seven story office building in Minneapolis, where the developer, Hines, wanted “the warmth of wood and the embrace of green construction techniques and materials” to attract the tech and creative sector of the market. It also goes together much faster than a conventional steel or concrete building.

Heavy timber office and warehouse construction fell out of favor early in the 20th century after major fires in a number of cities caused the switch to concrete and steel noncombustible construction. The development of effective sprinklers has reduced that risk, and concerns about the carbon footprint of concrete have made renewable wood look a lot more attractive.

From TreeHugger.com: https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/old-new-again-nail-laminated-timber.html?utm_source=WIT112715&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WeekInTrees