Mass Timber: The Next Great Disruption Of Construction, Wood Products Industries

by | May 15, 2017 | News

Mass Timber: The Next Great Disruption Of Construction, Wood Products Industries

The seeds of Andrew Waugh’s great disruption were planted in 2003. “Back then, people were saying we could ‘fix’ climate change by putting a solar panel on top of everything we built,” he remembered. “But we knew that wasn’t even close to enough.”

So Waugh’s East London architectural firm started studying mass timber, knowing it was the truly renewable building material – albeit largely unknown and untested in large-scale developments. “We were entranced by the opportunities this new material could provide,” he said.

It took five years for Waugh Thistleton Architects to hone their ideas – “so we could talk about the economic benefits of this kind of building” – and to bring that vision to reality in the world’s first mass timber tower, Murray Grove. The nine-story apartment complex in London’s Hackney borough was made from cross-laminated timber manufactured by KLH, an Austrian company.

Spruce strips were stacked crosswise three layers thick and glued together, producing horizontal beams and vertical structural wall boards that were harder than steel or concrete, with none of the associated carbon loss. The economic savings came at the construction site. Murray Grove was built in 27 days by four men, without a tower crane.

Using wood saved 1,150 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere – the equivalent of running a wind turbine on top of the building for 210 years. And 29 families moved into new homes in a country with an overwhelming housing shortage.

From Treesource: treesource.org.

 

Latest News

Webster Industries Purchases Renold

Webster Industries Purchases RenoldMPE Partners along with its portfolio company, Webster Industries, announced the closing of its acquisition of...

Find Us On Social

Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe Now
Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Complete the form
Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!

Contact Us

Oregon Buildings Get $200K To Test Cross-Laminated Timber

by | Jul 13, 2016 | News

Projects in Springfield and Portland have landed a collected $200,000 as leaders test the viability of cross-laminated timber.

The funding, awarded by the Business Oregon-backed cleantech champions Oregon BEST and the National Center for Advanced Wood Products Manufacturing and Design, will back research that fast-tracks CLT as a green construction material usable throughout the U.S.

Of that money, $155,000 will go to the planned four-story Glenwood Parking Structure in Springfield. The project’s developers will use the money for research, performance testing and code documentation. The team will measure such factors as vibration, moisture, post-tension loss in rocking shear walls and seismic instrumentation. The SRG firm designed the 360-space structure.

The National Center for Advanced Wood Products Manufacturing and Design, a collaboration between Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, will perform the research and testing functions. The Carbon 12 mixed-use condominium complex in Northeast Portland was awarded $45,000 for acoustic and moisture testing.

According to Oregon BEST, U.S. architects and builders wanting to use the new material in construction projects “must negotiate a maze of additional documentation, atypical performance modeling requirements, unfamiliar construction methods and building code hurdles that can delay CLT projects and has slowed adoption of the material.”

From the Portland Business Journal: https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/sbo/2016/07/new-springfield-portland-buildings-get-200k-to.html