Monthly Update: March 2021

ConstructConnect’s Journal of Commerce recently explored why and how prefabricated mass timber products are well suited for industrial construction. As with other segments, mass timber and hybrid systems offer the industrial sector many comparative advantages, including cost-efficiencies, shorter build times, high performance, flexibility, code compliance, and sustainability.

The piece highlighted several recent examples of completed wood-based public industrial buildings to demonstrate wood’s capabilities, including the single-story glulam post-and-beam Wood Innovation Research Lab in British Columbia (B.C.), which is the first industrial building in North America to be designed to a Passive House standard; the Alexandra District’s geothermal utility building, which used glulam columns and beams and CLT roof and walls as part of a hybrid system and took five days to erect; and the University of B.C.’s Campus Energy Centre, which alone is responsible for reducing the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by 33%.

Read more about the benefits of mass timber in commercial construction here.

Engineering News-Record recently featured the 69–71 A Street project in South Boston, a first-of-its-kind mass timber overbuild in the United States. The site’s original building was a 120-year-old former rivet factory, built of masonry and heavy timber. The design team explored several options for a vertical expansion before settling on CLT, thanks to its light weight.

According to project engineer Bryan Maltais of Boston-based McNamara ∙ Salvia Structural Engineers, the choice to use mass timber to build a two-story addition on the original building “was a no-brainer because it led to no foundation upgrades, except where we were adding an elevator core.” Maltais believes that other older buildings in Boston could benefit from A Street’s “lightweight and cost-effective rehabilitation methods.”

Read more about the project here.

Builder KB Home and the Well Living Lab, a research lab founded by the Mayo Clinic and Delos, have teamed to design and build a new healthy-living concept home in Phoenix, Arizona, a first step in a multiyear research project to understand and educate consumers on the home environment’s impact on their physical and mental health. The concept home employs the latest in health-focused technologies and biophilic design and construction materials. It is located in KB Home’s Santolina at South Mountain community, near the Mayo Clinic’s Scottsdale campus.

Read more about the concept home here.

The NAHB recently released data showing that new home size leveled off at 2,274 square feet in 2020, following four consecutive years of decline. The NAHB is optimistic that home size will grow in future years, as more and more consumers seek additional living space as a result of the pandemic and new telework realities.

Read more about the data here.

Green Building & Design magazine recently featured a catalog of 12 stunning examples of mass timber architecture. Nearly all the examples are from the United States, and combined, they show how mass timber can support and enhance the design of a wide array of building and construction types.

The piece includes a media partnership mention of Think Wood with regard to the Timber Lofts project in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Timber Lofts, a five-story, adaptive reuse project, is the first mass timber building in Milwaukee and a 2021 Wood Design Award winner.

View the featured projects here.

Timber analytics firm Forest2Market recently published a primer on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and the critical role that forestlands play in storing carbon. The continental United States contains approximately 632 million acres of forestland, which store an estimated 71,808 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The piece stresses the importance of maintaining the economic viability of forest ownership, including by creating and growing markets for low-value wood that can be converted into mass timber and other wood products, so as to maintain forests as carbon sinks.

Read the evidence-based analysis here.

Zonda’s recently released Q4 2020 Residential Remodeling Index (RRI) was full of good news for the segment—spending on residential remodeling posted a 1.7% increase from the previous quarter, marking 35 consecutive quarters of growth since remodeling activity bottomed out in 2011. Even more impressive, high-end spending on residential remodeling increased 10.3% year-over-year in the quarter.

Contrary to previous fears of market contraction, Zonda now expects that remodeling will continue trending upward throughout 2021 and beyond, growing by 4.8% on average in 2021, 1.6% in 2022, and 4.2% in 2023. Its forecast is premised on the strong housing market and growing optimism in the overall health of the economy.

Read more here.

Houston is seeing a surge in demand for housing in its suburbs and exurbs, as a growing number of residents migrate from its urban core. This shift to the suburbs is creating opportunities for multifamily housing and master-planned community developers. Historically, most multifamily tenants in the Houston market were millennials or empty nesters, but the pandemic has prompted a broader cross section to opt for multifamily buildings, motivated by amenities and lifestyle choices.

Softwood lumber products are a great fit for multifamily expansion in markets such as these, as the combination of lower building heights and favorable existing building codes fosters wood’s immediate entry, while wood’s sustainability, performance, and aesthetic benefits can help developers to differentiate their products.

Read more about this market opportunity here.