Mass Timber Competition Entry Period Officially Opens; Low-Carbon Construction Ranks First in Think Wood’s Annual Timber Trends Survey | SLB February 2022 Newsletter

Thanks in part to the American Wood Council’s (AWC) ongoing education and outreach efforts, Georgia, South Dakota, and Connecticut recently joined the growing list of states that have adopted the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) tall mass timber provisions.

Georgia added the tall mass timber provisions as an amendment to its state building codes, effective January 1; South Dakota adopted the entire 2021 IBC, including the tall wood provisions; and Connecticut finalized its adoption of the 2021 IBC and International Fire Code, which will be effective in October.

Ten states and the city of Denver have adopted the tall wood provisions thus far, and an additional three states and the District of Columbia are moving toward adoption. The SLB’s latest impact forecast estimates that by unlocking these tall mass timber codes in the 11 jurisdictions that have adopted, the softwood lumber industry is presented with an additional 93 million board feet of volume opportunity a year by 2035 and moving forward. States and cities included in this estimate include California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Colorado.

The AWC continued the practice of proactive engagement with the California building code community by participating in the California Building Standards Commission’s meeting to consider the adoption of the 2021 IBC and related amendments. The committee’s successful adoption of the 2021 IBC in effect overrode its previous adoption of tall mass timber code change amendments, which had been in effect since July 1, 2021.

During the meeting, the state fire marshal proposed, and the commission approved, minor and editorial changes to Chapter 7A, which includes standards associated with the construction of buildings in wildfire-prone areas. Changes to the wildland-urban interface (WUI) code provisions had little to no effect on the current provisions permitted in Chapter 7A, in part due to a three-year education and outreach effort by the AWC’s WUI task group, composed of industry members and other wood associations. The focused effort positioned the AWC and supporters to put off potentially challenging proposals to the next code cycle, allowing time for testing and research to be completed before making any unnecessary and costly revisions to the existing code provisions. During the next cycle, now underway, the AWC will work with the state fire marshal’s office on the adoption of the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code but with revisions that recognize provisions that allow for approval of a product based on its performance.

Think Wood recently completed its annual Timber Trends survey of 500 architecture, engineering, and construction professionals. According to the survey, the top trends, in order, are:

1. Low-carbon construction
2. Affordable housing
3. Prefabrication/modular
4. Mass timber
5. Hybrid construction
6. Workplace health and wellness
7. Tall wood
8. High-density housing
9. Biophilic design

While the top five trends are the same as in 2021, the order of priority has shifted, with affordable housing moving from the No. 5 trend in 2021 to the No. 2 trend in 2022; and mass timber moving from second place in 2021 to the No. 4 trend in 2022. The top three trends—low-carbon construction, affordable housing, and prefabrication/modular—ranked within >1% of each other, suggesting that these trends are equally relevant to today’s design and building professionals.

Survey respondents also had the chance to weigh in with their thoughts, remarking that, for example:

“Major needs for housing will drive materiality and construction types. I think finding a way to use prefab, mass timber low-income housing that is competitive to traditional house construction will be an interesting endeavor.”

“Mass timber will help institutional investors work closer to their ESG goals, and modular construction will allow developers to try to mitigate labor issues in construction.”

Beyond ranking top trends, Think Wood uses this research to better understand how practitioners view embodied carbon and engage with carbon tools. Key findings include:

• Of respondents, 77% consider embodied carbon impact when specifying structural materials at least some of the time. And 32% weigh the impacts all or most of the time, pointing to the carbon footprint of building materials as influential in building design.
• The use of formal whole-building life cycle assessment or carbon accounting tools is not yet widespread. Only 8% of respondents use LCA/carbon accounting tools all or most of the time, while 29% report using these tools “some of the time.” Given the interest in embodied carbon, we will likely see these tools used more in the years to come. Ensuring wood products are accurately represented in the tools is a worthwhile investment for low-carbon buildings and to protect future market share.
• Of respondents, 72% report that their firms either already have established, currently are establishing, or plan to soon establish ESG goals and/or carbon targets.

To learn more about the survey findings, download the Timber Trends Overview here.

When Milwaukee’s Ascent is completed this summer, it will be the tallest timber building in the world, featuring 19 stories of mass timber over a six-level podium. After supporting the project team during design, WoodWorks is now seeking to inspire the broader architecture, engineering, and construction community to build tall with wood by sharing insights into Ascent’s development process, including code approval.

In January, a WoodWorks-hosted webinar gave a behind-the-scenes account of Ascent’s development to 2,318 attendees—a record for WoodWorks. The webinar featured an interview by WoodWorks president, Jennifer Cover, with Ascent developer, Tim Gokhman of New Land Enterprises; architect, Jason Korb of Korb + Associates; and structural engineer, Jordan Komp of Thornton Tomasetti. The webinar is now available on demand via the Wood Institute, and WoodWorks is working to repurpose the footage for inclusion in a social media campaign to coincide with Ascent’s completion later this year.

The AWC increased its technical expertise and capacity to support wood-friendly codes and standards development by welcoming two additional engineers to its staff in February.

Dr. Omar Amini joined the AWC as its new Manager, Wind and Seismic Engineering. Amini has nearly a decade of experience in structural and experimental design and in the modeling of wood structures to resist wind and seismic loads. For his Ph.D., he developed seismic performance factors for the cross-laminated timber (CLT) shear wall systems that are used in the AWC’s ASTM standards. Amini serves on the ICC Residential Assessment and Seismic Retrofit Committee, which is working to develop a standard for seismic retrofit and assessment of one- and two-family dwellings.

The AWC has also engaged Dr. Francisco Flores as its Manager, Engineering Technology. Flores, who will work as a consultant for the AWC, holds PhDs in civil engineering from Virginia Tech and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. During and after his tenure at Virginia Tech, Flores contributed to the AWC’s seismic study of wood-frame shear wall structures and brings extensive experience in solving structural dynamics issues.