See the Mass Timber Design for the $700M New York Climate Exchange | SLB May 2023 Newsletter

The American Wood Council has launched a new Wood Sourcing Tool to tell the sustainability story of lumber through data based on a wood product’s mill grade stamp or region. Funded by the SLB and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the first-of-its-kind online tool is designed to help users better understand where their wood products are coming from and the safeguards in place throughout the supply chain to ensure sustainable processes.

“As questions around the sustainability of fiber supply continue to grow alongside interest in mass timber in commercial construction, this online Wood Sourcing Tool promises to provide regional, robust data that will provide assurances being sought by the architect, engineering, and construction communities,” said Rachael Jamison, AWC Vice President of Markets & Sustainability.

With a great story to tell about the sustainability of timber throughout the product life cycle, resources such as the Wood Sourcing Tool help create the transparency needed to make softwood lumber products a viable choice for specifiers.

With outdoor living season and National Deck Safety Month underway, a recent Think Wood project profile highlighted architect David Salmela’s Feldmann Residence, which features an eye-catching second-story cedar porch overlooking Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis.

The 235-square-foot deck is dramatically cantilevered from the second floor, supported by three Douglas fir glulam beams. Enclosing screens of cedar slats protect the space from the southern sun and provide a better protected, and more private, space. “It is an extremely dramatic place,” the architect says.

Defending timber’s single-family home market share with a focus on decking is a primary objective of the Think Wood campaign, and using design-centered stories like this regional modernist project helps keep wood top of mind for our architect and contractor audience.

With growing expertise on carbon and whole-building life-cycle assessment (WBLCA), WoodWorks is working to influence tools and policies created for the AEC community and affect material decisions on projects. WoodWorks continues to meet with tool developers to resolve shortcomings that negatively affect softwood lumber products, collaborate on wood industry positions, and meet with groups such as SE 2050, AIA 2030, and the Carbon Leadership Forum. WoodWorks is also developing WBLCAs with numerous partners, including several winners of the Mass Timber Competition: Building to Net-Zero Carbon, and identifying teams with published LCAs to help them create more accurate studies.

The U.S. Green Building Council has opened the door to creating more opportunities for wood construction to earn points under the newest version of the LEED program being developed. With an increased focus on embodied carbon, LEED v5 has the potential to highlight the benefits of wood construction, and WoodWorks and the AWC are working with the USDA Forest Service to provide input on those point categories.

The AWC was asked to help draft a revised “Raw Material Procurement” standard for LEED, proposing language that strategically shifts from forest practices to verified/verifiable mill-level systems to ensure stringent controls on wood entering the supply chain. The AWC supports this move, as getting a handle on forest management from thousands of land managers is not possible and is often outside of manufacturers’ control. An initial draft of the standard is expected to be released in September for public comment.

These outreach efforts around carbon and sustainability are critical to ensuring that AEC professionals have the right tools and platforms through which to understand the benefits of wood construction and why softwood lumber products might be the best material for their next project.

Five winners were recently selected in the 2022 Tall Building Design Competition sponsored by the SLB in collaboration with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The international competition invites students to harness their enthusiasm for natural materials by submitting concepts for multistory buildings in the United States that maximize the use and expression of mass timber. The competition’s jurors were impressed by the caliber of the innovative designs and expressed enthusiasm that many of the international submissions would foment further interest and engagement with mass timber at U.S. architecture schools.

“The projects exemplify a diverse, thought-provoking range of timber applications in the built environment,” said Edward Becker, Associate Professor at the Virginia Tech School of Architecture and Design. “The participation of international students in the CTBUH competition is great to see. Per their respective backgrounds, international students bring diverse social, cultural, and technological approaches to the use of wood, thereby benefiting American students and elevating the overall quality of work produced for future competitions.”

Through academic competitions like this, the SLB helps to identify and prioritize future leaders who are serious about entering architecture practice, while reinforcing their awareness of the economic and environmental benefits of building with wood—so that when they enter the workforce, wood will be considered immediately in the design process.