Support For Tall Timber Reaches New Heights In ICC Building Code

by | Oct 31, 2018 | News

Prescriptive requirements for wood structures up to 18 stories were among the additions preliminarily approved for the International Building Code following the work of the International Code Council’s ad-hoc Tall Wood Buildings Committee.

Wood is widely recognized as a carbon-neutral building material, but its use as a structural material has been mostly limited to residential and low-rise buildings due to its combustible nature. Through recent advances in manufacturing and engineering, wood in the form of mass timber products is increasingly attracting interest as a structural system for tall buildings.

Portland, Ore., recently saw the completion of the eight-story Carbon12, currently the tallest wood building in the United States. Still, progress has been slow in this country as compared to Europe or Canada, where the 18-story-tall Brock Commons, in Vancouver, stands as the tallest timber structure in the world. One significant issue inhibiting widespread adoption in the U.S. is prescriptive building codes, which currently limit the height of wood buildings to 85 feet, or six stories. In December 2015, the International Code Council (ICC) formed an ad-hoc committee to study the impact of tall wood buildings on the building code with the membership voting on the adoption of proposed changes on Oct. 24.

The ICC’s International Building Code (IBC) classifies a high-rise building as any building with an occupied floor 75 feet above the lowest level at which fire department vehicles can access. The 2018 IBC defines heavy timber structural members as Type IV construction, which also includes a range of wood products, such as solid sawn timber, glue-laminated members, and composite wood members. The term mass timber, however, comprises both heavy timber as well as engineered products, many of which the IBC does not reference, such as cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Heavy timber construction is currently limited to a height of 85 feet. Architects can design taller wood structures, but they must demonstrate that the design meets the prescribed code and performs as well or better than a similar concrete or steel structure. This can be a costly and time-consuming process, requiring extensive testing and documentation on the part of the design team and building owner.

Read more on this from Architect Magazine at https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/support-for-tall-timber-reaches-new-heights-in-the-building-code_o.

Tallest Wooden Tower In The World Is Almost Complete

by | Oct 5, 2016 | News

Say what you will about wooden construction, it is sustainable. So it’s great that even large structures are now being built out of wood. One awesome example of this type of architecture is Brock Commons, a University of British Columbia student housing tower. It will rise to an impressive 174 ft (53 m) and will be the tallest wooden residential tower in the world once it is complete. Which it very nearly is.

It took just 66 days to build the wooden tower. It’s not quite finished yet though, but once complete it will contain 33 four-bed rooms, and 272 studios, so the 18-floor tower will be able to accommodate 404 residents. The tower was designed by Acton Ostry Architects.

The structure consists of 16 floors of five-ply cross laminated timber (CLT) floor panels, and has a steel-framed roof, as well as a few concrete sections, namely the base and stairwells. The façade of the tower is made of prefabricated panels that had the windows pre-installed. These panels contain 70 percent wood-based fibers with steel stud framed sections, and form a high-pressure laminate cladding.

The construction went remarkably quickly. At first they managed to build one floor per week, but were able to go faster after that, building two or more floors per week. Not including the concrete sections, they’ve been able to complete the entire structure in just over three months, which given the size of the tower is quite remarkable.

The Brock Commons residence was also designed according to LEED Gold certification standards, and will receive this certification once it is completed. They estimate that it will be completed in May, 2017, which is four months ahead of schedule. They are currently installing the steel roof, which they hope to complete in a couple of weeks.

From Jetson Green: https://www.jetsongreen.com/2016/09/tallest-wooden-tower-in-the-world-is-almost-complete.html