March 2023

Turning Interest Into Projects at the International Mass Timber Conference

The International Mass Timber Conference, which takes place this week in Portland, Oregon, is the premier industry event for experts working with mass timber. The event has seen significant attendance growth since its founding in 2016 and especially since the pandemic, with a record 2,400 attendees from 35 countries projected to come to the show this year. That audience has expanded to include not just experienced mass timber practitioners, but also many architecture, engineering, and real estate development firms that have not yet realized a mass timber project. The SLB’s funded programs will be present to maximize this opportunity to grow the market for mass timber.

As co-host of the conference, WoodWorks is uniquely positioned to influence and support the thousands of design and construction professionals that will attend. WoodWorks will have a booth staffed with technical experts, along with speakers and moderators at several sessions. It will also be providing free passes to practitioners, conducting a mass timber boot camp, announcing winners of the 2023 Wood Design Awards (RSVP here), promoting construction management and installer training programming with a two-story mockup, and hosting a WoodWorks Innovation Network dinner and networking event.

Think Wood will be bringing the Mobile Tour to the exhibit floor, marking its third stop of the year. Think Wood is also the sponsor of the central lounge, which will be surrounded with video kiosks showing attendees how far mass timber adoption has come. 

If you’re attending the show, stop by booth 440 to chat with the WoodWorks team and booth 824 to visit the Think Wood Mobile Tour.

New Museum Building Demonstrates and Educates on Mass Timber’s Potential

A trailer load of eastern hemlock CLT produced by Smartlam—the first CLT made from this species of softwood—arrived this month at the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, as construction continues on the new Tang Science Annex. Designed by Vermont Integrated Architecture, the project serves as a test case for the CLT made from eastern hemlock, which was harvested in Vermont and New Hampshire. The eastern hemlock CLT, which is paired in this project with glulam, was developed and certified through a program from the North East State Foresters Association supported by a USDA Forest Service Wood Innovations Grant.

The SLB has supported mass timber education at the museum in the past, partially funding the creation of an interactive exhibit about mass timber (shown above) by design firm IKD that received 24,000 visitors in 2022. A poster based on the exhibit’s design was sent to investors and partners with the SLB’s 2021 Annual Report.

“As a natural history museum with strong environmental values, constructing a building using eastern hemlock CLT was a perfect fit,” Adam Kane, executive director of the Fairbanks Museum, told the SLB. “It would be naive to think that our small project has the scale to drive the supply chain for this product, but we’re optimistic that our ability to showcase eastern hemlock CLT in a beautiful, real-world application will inspire the future projects that will drive the supply chain.” 

The Science Annex will provide space for hands-on exhibits, including those about mass timber building techniques, helping to educate the public and the builders of tomorrow about the promising future of wood products.

Reminder: SLB Board Nominations Close April 14

The SLB seeks nominations of softwood lumber manufacturers and importers interested in candidacy for Board of Director seats coming open in January 2024. Each Director will serve a three-year term and may serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms. The deadline for nominations is April 14.

The SLB is seeking nominees to fill four seats for Directors whose terms expire on December 31:

To be eligible, nominees operating within the regions listed above must manufacture and ship within the United States, or import into the United States, at least 15 million board feet of softwood lumber annually. Under the program, large companies are defined as those that account for the top two-thirds of the volume of assessable softwood lumber annually, and small companies account for the remaining assessable softwood lumber.

The timeline for the nomination, appointment process, and further details can be found here.

Texas A&M Events Help Students Explore Wood Construction

In February, the SLB funded two events at Texas A&M to engage students from its architecture and engineering programs and generate interest and enthusiasm around wood construction. On February 13, Jennifer Bonner, a well-regarded Associate Professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, gave a guest lecture to a packed auditorium about how her practice specifies mass timber in the design of different building typologies.

Later in the week, the Think Wood Mobile Tour visited Rudder Plaza, a bustling gathering place adjacent to the architecture and engineering buildings on the College Station, Texas, campus. In addition to the exhibit attracting passers-by, professors brought groups of students to the Mobile Tour to see firsthand the economic and environmental benefits of building with wood. By offering a deeper understanding of the properties and potential of wood, both events allowed students to explore new ways to design and build sustainable, beautiful, and cost-effective structures—so that when they enter the workforce, wood will be one of the first material choices they consider in the design process. Check out video highlights of the tour here.  

Both Texas A&M events were coordinated by architecture professor James Tate, who has emerged as a strong proponent of mass timber education at the school as well as throughout the Texas academic community. SLB Education first worked with Tate at the SLB-sponsored 2022 faculty development workshop held at Clemson University. He is a member of SLB Education’s faculty advisory committee and is scheduled to speak at the next SLB Board of Directors meeting in Denver on May 17.

The AWC Educates State Officials on Tall Mass Timber

As more states adopt the 2021 International Building Code, state building and fire officials are looking to the AWC as a trusted resource to help them get up to speed on the tall mass timber provisions included in the code. The AWC is meeting the need by providing training sessions for code officials across the country. In recent months, it has completed training sessions at annual conferences for the Missouri Association of Building and Fire Officials, the Ohio Building Officials Association, and the Iowa Association of Building Officials, as well as at other events in St. Louis, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.

A dozen training sessions are already scheduled for upcoming months, including a session for the Code Officials Association of Alabama, which requested AWC training on tall mass timber after seeing the Think Wood Mobile Tour display at the 2022 ICC Annual Business Meeting. The AWC’s work to help building officials across the country become more comfortable with mass timber is critical as states either consider adoption of the tall mass timber provisions in the 2021 IBC or prepare to begin plan reviews under its provisions.

Tradition and Timber Come Together at Nesika Illahee

In a recent project profile, Think Wood highlighted Nesika Illahee, an affordable housing project in Portland, Oregon, tailored to Native American families in need. The inspiring project showcases the use of wood in biophilic design, as the architect used exposed wood as one of several ways to support the building’s residents recovering from past trauma and addictions.

“We are increasingly approaching projects with what we call trauma-informed design, particularly when it comes to affordable housing projects like Nesika Illahee,” says Brian Carleton, AIA, co-founder and principal of Carleton Hart, the project’s architect. “And biophilic design, the use of natural materials like wood and a connection to nature, is an important part of our approach.”

The project is just one example of the growing opportunity for wood products in the design and construction industry’s efforts to make housing more affordable. It’s also a compelling example of a hybrid design approach that incorporates both a light-frame wood structure and mass timber components such as glulam beams.

Redmond Senior & Community Center — Redmond, WA

Several months after WoodWorks Senior Director, Western Division, Janelle Leafblad gave a presentation on the tall wood code provisions at an AIA Seattle chapter meeting, she received a call from Johnston Architects. The firm was designing the 40,000-square-foot Redmond Senior & Community Center with Opsis Architecture and had some initial questions on grid layout. 

As the project moved forward, Leafblad was able to help navigate the project approval with the City of Redmond. For starters, the architect had assumed the mass timber project would need to be approved as Type IV-C construction, which is new to the 2021 IBC, but the city indicated that the project would require an alternate means process because the provisions weren’t yet adopted in Redmond.

Leafblad identified the code path that made the project allowable, but she also showed the architect that the Type IV provisions weren’t needed and staying in Type V or III would save project costs. (Type V and III institutional buildings up to 6 stories represented nearly 200 MM SF of project area in 2021, compared to only 5 MM SF in Type IV-C, 7- to 8-story buildings that same year, showing that while the opportunity for taller wood buildings is growing, buildings below 6 stories still provide major market opportunity.) The team went with Type III-B construction for the post-and-beam design with CLT floors and roof. The building, now under construction, will use 885,714 board feet (22.14 BF/SF). In a Zoom meeting, a Johnston Architects team member said: “I’m so glad I came to the AIA code series and saw you present. I had no idea about the amount of services WoodWorks provides.”

For California Mass Timber Civic Project, Sustainability Is a Hook—With Plenty of Side Benefits

For a civic building in a sustainability-minded state, environmental performance can help a building stand out as much as eye-catching design. That was the case in San Mateo County’s Office Building 3 (COB3) in Redwood City, California. In Engineering News-Record, reporter Tim Newcomb writes that turning to timber helped the project’s design team create an iconic, low-carbon building with a host of other project benefits—including helping it stay on budget.

Designed to be net-zero energy and LEED Platinum, COB3 was designed using CLT and glulam, demonstrating the financial advantages of building with wood, according to Mark Whiley, a project executive for Truebeck Construction. “Inherently with timber buildings, you don’t want to cover it up,” Whiley told Newcomb. “Probably 75% of our building is exposed to accentuate [the timber] in the end build, which reduces build-out costs and tenant improvement costs.”

Wood construction’s speed and light weight were also important project benefits: With poor soil conditions on site, timber’s lighter weight as a building material permitted the addition of a fifth floor, bringing the building to 72 feet tall. Architect and engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill created a bespoke steel bucket connection for the project’s components that made them quick and easy to assemble, saving time and money. 

A model of COB3, which is on track for completion in Q3 2023, will be on display as a featured project in REFRAMED, an exhibition opening next month at the Chicago Architecture Center showcasing how mass timber technologies are redefining community and city building. The SLB continued its partnership with the Center for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats as a primary funder of the exhibit, which will run from April through October, and will help to showcase the benefits of climate-smart development with mass timber for the design community and the general public.

This monthly housing commentary report is a free service of Virginia Tech and is intended to help one gauge future business activity in the U.S. housing market.

January 2023 Reports (released in March 2023)

Part A: January Housing Commentary

Part B: January Economic Conditions