With WoodWorks’ Support, 25-Story Ascent Set to Make History as Tallest Timber Tower in North America; More Industry News and Trends | SLB Newsletter September 2021

According to NAHB’s Eye on Housing, the average size for new single-family homes is on the rise, driven by the pandemic’s impacts on working and living habits. According to second quarter 2021 data from the Census Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design and NAHB analysis, median new single-family floor area increased to 2,297 square feet, and average square footage increased to 2,540. On average, new single-family homes are now 5.5% larger than during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. NAHB expects larger home sizes to persist as a consumer preference in the post-Covid-19 environment. Read more about this trend here.

NAHB also found that the custom home share decreased to 17.8 percent of all single-family homes started in 2020—the lowest the annual custom home share has been since the 2005 re-design of the SOC. The custom home market consists of contractor-built and owner-built houses—homes built one at a time for owner occupancy on the owner’s land, with either the owner or a builder acting as a general contractor. Read more about this trend here.

In a recent blog, Amy Androff of the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory heralded the role of trees and wood products in mitigating global climate change. In one year, a mature live tree can absorb more than 48 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is stored until the tree—or its wood product derivative—experiences a physical event like fire or decomposition. Androff notes that through the use of life cycle assessments (LCAs), researchers have concluded that, with sustainable forest management in place, carbon-storing “forests and wood products will have the greatest potential to lessen climate change impacts.” Androff also cites LCA studies that have found that CLT buildings have a lower carbon footprint and store more carbon than buildings constructed from non-timber materials.

Read more from Androff here.

A Minnesota-based environmental management organization, Dovetail Partners, has released a new report on carbon credits in the U.S. forest sector, covering the status of voluntary and regulatory carbon markets and recent developments.

The report notes that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has specifically identified high-carbon storage/low-embodied carbon substitutes for concrete and steel in construction, such as mass timber, as one of several viable forestry-related options for mitigating climate change. Wood products and other identified options provide the basis for forest carbon offsets, and cumulatively, the potential market for these offsets could reach up to 5 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030. Existing voluntary markets are only providing 8 to 13% of what the domestic market may demand within a decade, suggesting substantial room for growth. Growth will hinge on effective policy actions, forest stewardship, and landowner engagement.

Read Dovetail Partners’ report here.

Pallet Enterprise recently reported on the latest innovations and commercialization efforts in new uses for wood and cellulose material to minimize carbon emissions. The piece cited CLT as a “wood residual success story,” noting that the global CLT market is expected to grow by double digits this decade, exceeding a market valuation of $2.25 billion by 2027. Building owners, designers, and occupants alike are increasingly gravitating to CLT buildings for their environmental benefits. North America accounts for about 43% of global production, with 14 plants online and three other facilities under development.

The piece also provides market updates for wood fiber insulation, transparent wood glass, 3D printing using sawdust, and cellulose batteries.

Read more here.

Designed by ASPECT and Murdoch & Company, the 10-story Malahat Skywalk & Visitor Centre is now open to visitors on Southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Visitors pass through a one-story visitor center made of mass timber and light-wood frame before ascending a 650m-long wooden walkway to reach stunning views of Finlayson Arm, Saanich Peninsula, Mount Baker, and the Coast Mountains in the distance. The 65-feet-tall spiral walk was constructed using glulam columns, with steel X-bracing encasing the perimeter and outriggers supporting the wooden walkway.

Read more about and see photos of the Skywalk here.

As reported in ENR, developers will break ground on a four-story, 94,000-square-foot mass timber office building in downtown Baltimore this fall, the city’s first. The developer, 28 Walker, stated that it “chose to utilize heavy timber based on the material’s positive energy efficiency attributes, creating an organically warm exterior and interior design with flooring, columns, and exposed ceilings all comprised of natural wood.”

The project, which was announced in early 2021, has recently undergone a redesign because of revised lease depths.

Read more about the project here.