Monthly Update: February 2020

Award-winning architect Michael Green recently spoke about his vision to transform the construction industry and connect consumers to the natural world by using mass timber as part of the Pioneers for Our Planet video series created for the recent 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos. Green sees the worldwide uptake of CLT and other mass timber products as a critical intervention to address climate change.

Watch Green’s segment here.

Many indices and analysts have predicted that 2020 will see only tepid remodeling growth of less than 1% nationwide; however, unexpectedly strong 2019 Q4 new-home sales numbers may boost this outlook. New-home sales in the quarter indicate higher demand for residential construction at the beginning of the year, and history has shown that there is a strong correlation between remodeling activity and new-home construction, with both activities tending to move up and down together, versus countering each other.

Despite this positive blip, many analysts still believe that cyclical recession is on the horizon in 2021 and/or 2022, which suggests that remodeling firms need to capitalize on the current opportunity and market conditions.

Read more here.

Yesler, a new electronic marketplace, will soon launch online with a goal of transforming how the lumber and building materials (LBM) industry does business. Yesler will make it easier for lumberyards to find and buy what they need, when they need it, from one digital marketplace, rather than tracking down availability and prices from a variety of mills. In turn, Yesler will also enable sellers to consolidate demand in one place.

Yesler’s founder is one of two executive staff members who were formerly with Weyerhauser, affording them years of firsthand knowledge and experience in the LBM industry.

Read more about Yesler here.

Michael Sykes, a homebuilder and inventor in Raleigh, North Carolina, has been on a 30-year mission to develop and perfect a climate-smart, resource-efficient house kit capable of self-heating and cooling and made up exclusively of renewable materials. His output is Enertia Building Systems’ pre-cut, numbered kits, which will independently sequester 25 to 50 tons of carbon and prevent the release of 4 million tons of CO₂ in each house’s lifetime.

The system features a biomimicry technique, wherein walls are made of 8-inch connected “atmospheres” of Southern Pine mass timber, which store heat energy in resin. The sun heats this artificial atmosphere during the day, and the timber releases the heat at night. Cooling is achieved by connecting the atmosphere with the underground earth. Enertia Building Systems plans to license its technology in North America, Europe, and Argentina.

Read more about the system here.

Hakim Hasan, a Boston-based robotics specialist at the U.S. studio Perkins and Will, has transformed a Danish-produced Universal Robot (UR5) into an android-like apprentice, able to quickly convert computational designs into sophisticated 3D models. Hasan’s research was funded in part by the Binational Softwood Lumber Council and is among Perkins and Will’s latest investments in robotics intended to increase the speed and precision of developing mass timber and other sustainable building designs.

Read more about this innovation here.

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities announced that Pete Madden has joined its staff as president on February 17. Madden brings more than 30 years’ experience in the forest sector, having worked in land management, procurement, supply chain logistics, and renewable energy with groups such as Westvaco, Georgia-Pacific, Plum Creek, and most recently, Drax Biomass, Inc.

The Endowment is a not-for-profit public charity based in Greenville, South Carolina, that works collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative, and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities.

Read more about the Endowment and Madden’s appointment here.

The New York Times real estate section recently featured Frame Home, a Manhattan-based development firm that is prioritizing wood over concrete and brick in the construction of a series of rental buildings in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Frame Home has specified mass timber in its Brooklyn development for its lower carbon footprint, aesthetics, and shorter construction times. The first building, a five-story, 10-unit CLT building that began marketing in the fall, expects to open this winter.

CLT is generally prohibited in New York City, though Frame Home won an exception after adding an extra-strength sprinkler system and special noncombustible insulation to its plans. The author notes that Frame Home is undeterred by the extra red tape and is already planning its next mass timber project, a 17-unit rental that will break ground this year.

Read more about these developments here.