by Web Editor | 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
by Web Editor | Mar 7, 2016 | News
DR Johnson Lumber Co., based in the small Oregon town of Riddle, is poised at the forefront of what could be a revolutionary use of wood as a building material in the Northwest.
Don R. Johnson founded the mill in 1951. Following his death in 2010, his daughters Valerie Johnson and Jodi Westbrooks decided they needed to move the millworks company in a new direction. Their father had been quick to jump on laminated beam products early on and the millworks had manufactured them for decades. Following the lead of their father’s eye for innovation, Valerie and Jodi decided to expand the mill’s manufacturing through a division called Riddle Laminators to include a new product they had heard about.
They have since invested millions of dollars in machinery that is allowing DR Johnson to become the first manufacturer in the country certified to produce cross-laminated timber panels – a new take on existing technology and products in the wood construction industry. What makes their product so progressive is the use of new-growth softwoods like Douglas fir to produce lighter, stronger, more flexible panels in sizes able to make the construction process much more efficient. They also offer a replacement to typical steel or concrete framing.
“We’re limited to 10-foot-by-32-foot panels because of transportation issues, but we can go larger if we need to,” said Todd Black, DR Johnson sales manager. “We have computer-controlled router systems that can pre-cut door and window openings, so the panels come prefabricated, labeled (for point of installation) and ready for immediate installation. Because they’re stronger and lighter than steel or concrete, we’re not limited to three or four stories as wood-frame construction would be.”
CLT is starting to capture attention in Portland. A 12-story structure under construction in the Pearl District will be the tallest all-wood building in the U.S. The technology has already been used successfully in Europe, where buildings up to 22 stories have been constructed with the same type of panels.
From DJC Oregon: https://djcoregon.com/news/2016/03/03/newsmakers-2016-dr-johnson-lumber-company/
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 | Sep 23, 2015 | News
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, in partnership with the Softwood Lumber Board and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, recently announced the winners of the U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. The two winning development teams were granted a combined $3 million in funding to support the development of tall wood demonstration projects in New York and Portland, Oregon.
At a press conference hosted in New York this morning, Secretary Vilsack congratulated the competition winners. “The U.S. wood products industry is vitally important as it employs more than 547,000 people in manufacturing and forestry, with another 2.4 million jobs supported by U.S. private forest owners,” said Vilsack. “By embracing the benefits of wood as a sustainable building material, these demonstration projects have the ability to help change the face of our communities, mitigate climate change and support jobs in rural America. I look forward to seeing how these two buildings help lead the way in furthering the industry.”
Next-generation lumber and mass timber products are becoming the latest innovation in building. Innovative new technologies and building systems have enabled longer wood spans, taller walls, and higher buildings, and continue to expand the possibilities for wood use in construction. Mass timber wood products are flexible, strong, and fire resistant, and can be used as a safe and sustainable alternative to concrete, masonry, and steel. Using wood helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by storing carbon and simultaneously offsetting emissions from conventional building materials.
Wood can also help struggling rural forest communities. During the Recession, the drop in new construction and decline in home remodeling had a deep impact on wood manufacturing. However, if next-generation wood products can penetrate just five to fifteen percent of the non-residential North American market, it would mean roughly 0.8 – 2.4 billion board feet of lumber consumed annually. To put that in real-world context, roughly 35 jobs are created for each million board feet of wood processed.
The two winning proposals – Framework and 475 West 18th – were selected by a panel of distinguished jurors in the architecture and engineering fields who are familiar with innovative wood building systems. While each took a unique approach, both projects met the Competition’s criteria to showcase the safe application, practicality and sustainability of a minimum 80-foot structure that uses mass timber, composite wood technologies and innovative building techniques.
From the USDA: https://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2015/09/0259.xml
by Web Editor | Sep 2, 2015 | News
We ask: If the 19th century modern building material technology was associated with steel and the 20th century with concrete, could the 21st be the century of “MCT,” mass construction timber? Wood, one of the world’s oldest (and greenest) building materials, was the de facto construction material in American cities for over two centuries, falling out of favor when non-combustible materials capable of building high and wide emerged.
Today, highly engineered timber, sized to compete with these structural systems, is making a comeback in Europe, especially in Germany and in Austria, where the world’s first 8-story “ply-scraper” was recently completed. Stateside, the Boston Society of Architects recently featured Urban Timber, an exhibit showcasing innovative developments in wood technology and construction, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is sponsoring a $2M ideas competition for the design of tall wood buildings. Given all of this hoopla, one could assume that we are on the verge of a global timber revolution, yet the U.S. is lagging far behind our European neighbors. In fact, to date, neither the U.S. nor Canadian building codes explicitly recognize mass timber structural systems.
Deeply committed to sustainability, we made the choice to dive feet first into connecting with the past to build the future by employing MCT for the primary structural system of our University of Massachusetts Amherst Design Building. Designed with Equilibrium Consultants, one of the world’s foremost timber engineers, the building will house the university’s Departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Regional Planning, and Building Construction Technology, and is now under construction. Permitted through a variance application using the “alternative” method provisions of the building code, our 87,000-square-foot building furthers the university’s educational mission by incorporating examples of the inherent departments’ design practices. Targeting LEED Gold, it will be among the first MCT structures in the region when completed in 2017.
Laminated technologies, first developed in Europe in the 1980s, are allowing us to fabricate fairly massive timber components for the Design Building using small diameter trees sustainably harvested from managed forests. Our selected timber, black spruce, was sourced from Canada’s Boreal forest region, an area that constitutes the world’s largest land based biome. It is constituted to stand up to fire and maintain its structural integrity.
From Metropolis Magazine: https://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/August-2015/Timbers-Transformation-An-Old-Building-Material-is-Reborn/
