The SLB Joins With CTBUH and Steel Industry to Host Steel-Timber Hybrid Buildings Conference; Updated AWC Span Calculator Now Available | SLB April 2022 Newsletter

Architect Magazine has published a new on-demand continuing education unit (CEU), underwritten by Think Wood, that explores how advances in wood construction and sustainability can contribute to the built environment. The CEU examines the use of wood in sustainable design, including as part of adaptive reuses, and features a panel discussion with architects Ruth Mandl, AIA, principal of the Brooklyn, New York-based Co Adaptive Architecture, and Joshua R. Gassman, sustainable design director at Lord Aeck Sargent.

Mandl stresses sustainability as a holistic endeavor, believing that the more design professionals learn about sustainable practices, the more they will consider not only the source and manufacturing of materials, but also the people involved and the life cycle of a given material. “Although architects may believe that what they build is permanent, it’s not,” Mandl says. “How can we already plan for this impermanence now such that in the future, these buildings are easier to adapt and easier to take apart and reuse the components elsewhere?”

The recorded presentation is the first of a two-part continuing education series on advances in wood construction through the lens of sustainability and innovation.

Learn more about the CEU here.

A new calculator created by Princeton University is meant to help city planners and town councils around the world identify and prioritize actions to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. The tool, called the Zero Emissions Calculator for Communities (ZECC), includes a gamut of potential actions, including mass timber construction, urban reforestation, compact development, electric heating systems, and technologies focused on increasing efficiencies in the food, waste, and energy sectors.

The Princeton team is also working to combine the ZECC tool with high-resolution local data to create a Greenhouse Gas Scenario Planning tool to quantify individual communities’ energy use and emissions. This tool is in beta testing using the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council in Minnesota as its test site.

Russ Stark, the City of Saint Paul’s Chief Resiliency Officer, said: “We’re always trying—literally month to month—to figure out the best use of our time in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This can help us decide whether to focus more on particular transportation initiatives, or building energy initiatives, or other things.”

Anu Ramaswami, who developed the tool, pays specific attention to the carbon savings wood creates when used in place of concrete in buildings, noting that “mass timber buildings can be a phenomenal way of literally storing the forest in your building.” Ramaswami believes that designing buildings with mass timber can close cities’ carbon gaps by an estimated 10%. In addition, building more multistory buildings can result in compact urban design that maximizes travel efficiency to close the carbon gap by another 20%, creating space for urban reforestation.

Read more about ZECC and the worldwide pursuit of zero carbon here.

The Journal of Commerce by ConstructConnect recently featured BioFrame, a prefabricated mass timber building system developed by Vancouver architect Arno Matis. Matis believes that BioFrame can offer a cost-effective solution to revitalizing buildings, particularly multifamily buildings, hotels, and possibly industrial sites, by avoiding challenges related to labor shortages, rising costs, waste, and carbon emissions.

BioFrame is unique in that it employs a method of clipping mass timber components onto existing steel or concrete structures. It can be used to retrofit older buildings by adding space to existing floors or by adding new stories. For new stories, BioFrame uses a support column system to transfer loads downward, overcoming any inability of an existing structure to bear added load.

Matis is quick to tout the benefits of BioFrame’s use of mass timber and prefabrication, which include carbon sequestration, faster construction times, and reduced costs, including by saving on demolition, removal, and recycling of waste.

Read more about BioFrame here.

The National Association of Home Builders’ Eye on Housing released its latest data on the construction labor market, which shows a growing number of job openings year-over-year. February 2022 saw 381,000 unfilled positions, which, while steady from the previous month, is significantly higher than the 257,000 openings recorded a year ago. Hiring increased, reaching a rate of 5.2%, and layoffs remained low, at 2%. Layoffs have trended low since 2021 and reflect the industry’s skilled labor shortage.

Looking ahead, the NAHB believes that the construction job openings rate is likely to rise as both residential and nonresidential construction expand. In particular, the organization’s analysts note that the housing market remains underbuilt and requires additional skilled labor, land, lumber, and other building materials to add inventory. Attracting skilled labor will likely grow more challenging as unemployment continues to decline and the labor market strengthens. Concurrently, keeping up with rising wages and labor costs is also likely to pose a challenge to many employers in the sector.

Read more about construction labor trends here.

Realtor.com recently covered the rapid rise of rent-to-own housing companies and products. In requiring as little as 1 to 2% down, rent-to-own firms market their products as an alternative for first-time and other homebuyers, who face record-high home prices, high rental prices, and inflation.

Realtor.com notes that while rent-to-own opportunities can help buyers in a competitive housing market, in most cases, people may ultimately pay more than if they bought a home outright, and many never actually close on their homes, despite paying a markup. Analysts caution that evaluating the specifics and risk of each deal is critical for prospective buyers.

For some of these consumers, built-for-rent housing, which has also witnessed considerable growth in recent years, may offer an alternative. Built-for-rent homes offer opportunities to live in a single-family home without high down-payment costs or the small-print risks associated with rent-to-own. The tradeoff? Lack of ownership and equity for the occupant. The SLB is actively tracking the built-for-rent housing segment as an opportunity to increase softwood lumber demand and consumption in the coming years.

Read more from Realtor.com here.

Researchers from Texas A&M University have developed a new flame-retardant coating for wood construction materials, such as studs and strand boards. The coating can also be used on textiles, polyurethane foam, and 3D-printed materials.

In testing, wood treated with the coating and then burned released less heat and smoke and quickly led to a surface layer of char, thereby protecting the underlying structure. By reducing flame spread and smoke production, the coating can give people more time to evacuate to safety and reduce material damage from fires.

The impact of expanding wildfires has spurred research into promising ideas for new pressure-treated fire retardants. And while the AEC community may welcome innovation from manufacturers, new formulations should be carefully considered against the proven effectiveness, impacts on material strength, and cost of already available solutions.

Read more about the innovation here.

This summer and with support from the SLB and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) TallWood project will simulate an earthquake to test how a 10-story mass timber building withstands seismic forces. The test specimen will be built using a mass timber gravity frame and rocking walls, and it will incorporate nonstructural elements and contents. The test will be conducted on the recently upgraded LHPOST6 shake table at NHERI at the University of California-San Diego. The test specimen will be the world’s tallest full-scale building ever tested.

NHERI is a multidisciplinary research effort, launched in 2016, to test and advance the resiliency of wood construction. It has previously performed shake table tests on two-story mass timber buildings. For this summer’s 10-story test, the research team predicts that the building’s structural system will emerge without damage following multiple design-level simulated earthquakes, proving tall timber’s resiliency during quakes.

Research team member Shiling Pei, from the Colorado School of Mines, also sees the testing as an important public education opportunity, stating: “It will demonstrate the potential benefits of constructing tall buildings out of wood and, with any luck, will also inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists.”

Read more about the upcoming testing here.