by Web Editor | 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
by Web Editor | Oct 16, 2015 | News
Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) is one of our favorite materials; it’s made from a renewable resource, it sequesters carbon dioxide, it’s lighter than concrete and it’s lovely to look at. What’s not to love? In most of the CLT projects so far its use has been downplayed, thanks to the effectiveness of the concrete and steel people who try and convince people that it is not as good as concrete. That’s why this new project in Montreal is so interesting: It accentuates the positive, the virtues of wood construction. Even its name, Arbora, alludes to wood.
It’s also big. The Arbora project in Montreal is claimed to be the largest residential CLT project in the world, made up of 434 condo, townhouse and rental units in three eight story buildings, all made from sustainably harvested wood turned into panels by Nordic CLT. It’s designed by Lemay+CHA.
But what I really like is the fact that they are really building on the strengths of wood instead of trying to hide it. The developers, in their marketing, discuss the renewable aspects of wood construction, the strength and weight advantages, the thermal and fire resistance, the accuracy.
Prefabricated panels cut to the required dimensions are delivered to the site, and the openings for doors and windows are cut to an accuracy of one tenth of a millimeter using computer numerical control (CNC) precision machinery. Everything is planned and organized so the building can be erected quickly.
From TreeHugger.com: https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/worlds-largest-cross-laminated-timber-apartment-complex-being-built-montreal.html?utm_source=WIT101615&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WeekInTrees
by Web Editor | Apr 24, 2015 | News
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, it would be better if we built buildings from wood than from concrete, brick, aluminum and steel.
We use millions of tons of these modern materials every year. They have many valuable properties, but are energy-intensive to create, accounting for around 16% of the entire planets’ fossil fuel production. Instead we could be using wood, which is also strong, renewable, and plentiful – we use only a fraction of the world’s available forestry resources.
Our research, published in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, estimated that the world’s forests contain about 385 billion cubic meters of wood, with an additional 17 billion cubic meters growing each year. A mere 3.4 billion cubic meters is harvested each year, mostly for subsistence fuel burning; the rest rots, burns in fires, or adds to forests’ density.
Swapping steel, concrete, or brick for wood and specially engineered wood equivalents would drastically reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuel consumption and would represent a renewable resource. What’s more, managed properly this can be done without loss of biodiversity or carbon storage capacity.
In our study undertaken by scientists from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the University of Washington’s College of the Environment we evaluated various scenarios including leaving forests untouched, burning wood for energy and use of wood as a construction material.
From Architecture & Design: https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/comment/swap-steel-concrete-and-brick-for-wood-wooden-buil?utm_source=WIT042415&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WeekInTrees
