Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Vancouver studio Michael Green Architects has released plans for a development in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which includes a mass-timber skyscraper that would be the tallest in the world if completed. Set to be built alongside the Marcus Center in central Milwaukee, the multi-tower scheme led by developer Neutral is currently going through the city’s approvals process. Michael Green Architecture’s (MGA) plans for the development include office space, retail, hotel, residential and public plazas. It would be built on the site of a parking structure for the Marcus Center, a brutalist mid-century structure designed by Harry Weese. Current renderings for the development show a 55-storey tower made principally from mass-timber elements, which would make it the tallest engineered-wood skyscraper in the world if completed. It would unseat the 86.6 metres (284 feet), Ascent tower by Korb + Associates Architects, the current tallest, which is also in Milwaukee.

Atlanta is a city of trees. At almost 50%, the city has the highest proportion of overall urban tree canopy in the nation. But for all the aesthetic and environmental benefits trees provide to our urban landscape, there is one practical downside: Trees fall, or have to be taken down, and then need to be disposed of from streets and backyards alike. If the wood is of high value, the tree gets a chance at a second life as a useful piece of lumber. …Woodworkers Kelly and Ali Syed and Chris Tappan, created a unique nonprofit entity amid a vast network of for-profit urban wood industries. In addition to operating a sawmill, they retrieve salvaged trees and process the wood to produce furniture-grade lumber and live-edge wood slabs—always in high demand—which they sell to DIYers, woodworkers, and artisans. …The foundation plans to eventually open a brick-and-mortar store.

Paradise, Pennsylvania — B&D Builders, a leader in equestrian facility design and construction, is leveraging its sustainable timber frame buildings methods to promote environmentally responsible initiatives, starting with “Green Is the New Blue.” Known for creating legacy structures that honor both the land and the equestrian lifestyle, B&D Builders is dedicated to eco-friendly construction practices that ensure a sustainable future for the equestrian community. …B&D Builders has long been recognized for their skill in timber frame construction, a method that is both time-honored and environmentally responsible. Timber serves as a carbon sink by trapping greenhouse gases as part of structures, keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere which helps maintain a cooler climate. The company hand- selecta timbers and uses CNC machines to maximize efficiency and minimize waste. …Green Is the New Blue is an environmental non-profit that strives to empower and inspire equestrians to reduce the environmental impact of equine-related activities. 

RALEIGH, N.C. — It looked like something a kindergartner might use in an art project. So ordinary looking that, when Jack Wang was presenting it once, someone nearly set a drink down on it by accident. “Almost gave me a heart attack,” recalled Wang, a geneticist here at North Carolina State University. The thin, white, coaster-size circle of paper Wang was holding in his lab was anything but ordinary. He and his colleagues made this piece of paper from genetically edited wood — a material his team hopes will transform the way paper and other wood products are produced. …If there is a molecule that makes wood wood, it’s lignin. …The paper industry uses lots of chemicals and energy to remove lignin from pulp. …So Wang and Barrangou set out to grow trees containing less lignin. …Their goal is to produce low-lignin trees for commercial use by 2040. [Full access to this story requires a Washington Post subscription]

The Chicago Tribune recently asked why mass timber construction is so lagging in Chicago while nearby Milwaukee and other cities in the Pacific Northwest and Europe are making strides to embrace the movement by altering their building codes and fire safety regulations. Even after an amenable update to its citywide code in 2020, forces such as the collective memory of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire are one such impediment to the development of new wooden designs. A two-year-old residential project from Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture — a rare approved proposal over five stories — appears to have stalled. The DOB says it considers additional exceptions to the limit “on a case-by-case basis,” but there remains an impression it is too late to the table, leaving the city known for its architectural innovations disappointingly out of the vanguard while a new race to the top unfolds.

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pennsylvania — Designing and building the first mass timber commercial office building in the Philadelphia metropolitan area required intense coordination to combine mass timber with multiple structural systems. Located in Newtown Square, Pa., the $44.3-million, 105,000-sq-ft building called Ellis Mass Timber is a complex five-story building set for final completion on schedule and on budget in July, about 18 months after construction started. …The team lost about two weeks in schedule but was able to “quickly pick up what we lost on helical piles during timber erection,” Byard says. Timber erection was completed in a shorter period of time—13 weeks, rather than 15 weeks, he notes. …Although the Ellis Mass Timber project has been more expensive than traditional steel and concrete, “the quality of construction, desirable aesthetics and environmental benefits have provided a positive rent-to-cost ratio versus traditional construction,” Spaeder says.

The walls of a straw house are under construction in a former boat shop at a Rockland industrial park. They aren’t the stacked bales of a hand-plastered homestead; they’re panels of compressed Maine plants industrially sealed in Maine wood. Croft, a young company that expanded here from a former sardine cannery nearby, hopes to shake up the building industry — plus many other aspects of housing, farming, and life in Maine. It’s part of a growing network here and across the country reexamining plant-based building materials. The underlying concepts aren’t new, but much of the movement today is focused on capturing carbon from the atmosphere in response to concerns about human and environmental health tied to modern construction. Construction and materials made up 11 percent of emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. Andrew Frederick, founder of Croft, sees straw as a way to flip those numbers. 

Kansas City’s new energy standards for home builders, years in the making, have been in effect only since last fall. Developers want the City Council to weaken the new code by adopting an ordinance drafted by the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City, and that could happen as soon as this week. That would be a big mistake, says local builder Tony Libra, the owner of Aspen Homes, and we agree. …“Sure,” he told us, “there’s going to be an increased cost, but if I look back over the last 24 months, the swing in lumber prices is greater than the cost of this energy code. …“But everyone seems to absorb those costs, and vendor costs, yet they’re singling out this energy code as a devil when these costs you put into a home, the homeowner is probably going to get back.” …The City is expected to vote on the ordinance on Tuesday.

If you’re designing a mass timber school in Michigan, the approvals process has recently become more straightforward. The State has updated an old statute—Act 306 of 1937—that some building code officials had interpreted as in conflict with the Michigan Building Code (MBC) when it comes to mass timber in schools. The old version of the code specified only the use of “fire resisting materials”—including steel and concrete, but not wood—for school construction. Michigan enacted the out-of-date statute at a time before the commercialization of mass timber materials like cross-laminated timber and glulam, which research has since proven have excellent fire resistance properties. Nevertheless, the statute—not consistent with MBC—created red tape in the approvals process for at least one Michigan school in recent years. Seeing the need to resolve this inconsistency, the Michigan Legislature passed House Bill 4603, which amends Act.

MILWAUKEE – A new building proposal could change Milwaukee’s skyline and set a world record. The city announced plans for multiple mixed-use buildings that would replace the Marcus Performing Arts Center parking structure at Water and State. While one building would become the state’s tallest, another would be the world’s tallest mass timber building. The proposed mass timber building would be the third of its kind in Milwaukee. The Ascent on Van Buren was the most recent build. “These are more popular in Europe and other countries,” said North Shore Fire Rescue Chief Robert Whitaker. Whitaker said don’t let the wood fool you; with building code requirements and updated technology, mass timber buildings are fire safe. …The project would potentially the tallest building in the state. Currently, the tallest building in Wisconsin is the US Bank Center, which stands 601 feet tall. The proposed building would stand 613 feet.

GO Lab Inc., doing business as TimberHP, was awarded a $418,420 grant to install equipment and software that will capture energy and raw material usage data on its board, batt and loose-fill insulation made from wood fiber. The data will be used to develop standardized labeling that would make it easier for buyers to ensure the construction projects they fund use more climate-friendly products and materials. The Madison startup was one of four recipients of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants to support efforts in reporting and reducing climate pollution from the manufacturing of construction materials. The data will be used to develop and publish environmental declarations for each of the company’s three product lines over its first five years of production. …TimberHP is the first company in North America to produce insulation from wood fiber.