March 2021

Updated Mass Timber Outlook Shows Significant Growth Potential Through 2035

The Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) added a new tool to the industry’s effort to quantify and capture market opportunities for mass timber with the publication of an updated Mass Timber Outlook, which charts potential incremental softwood lumber opportunity in the United States through 2035.

The SLB developed the Mass Timber Outlook in partnership with FPInnovations and Ben Romanchych Consulting. The outlook uses a combination of current and historical market shares, wood building construction trends, and long-term outlooks to identify a potential 3.7 billion to 6.7 billion board feet (bbf) of incremental opportunity by 2035. 65% of estimated volume opportunity is projected to occur in non-residential construction; 78% occurs in the one- to six-story range (in both residential and non-residential segments, with one-to-four stories accounting for 44% of the total volume opportunity); and 20% is composed of wood cores. The updated Mass Timber Outlook also provides regional forecasts and estimates how the overall market opportunity will manifest in total building numbers and their carbon impact.

The SLB is also working to quantify market opportunity specific to mass timber’s use in hybrid construction. Analysis to date indicates that the majority of the opportunity for hybrid construction by 2035 lies in non-residential projects, with an overall potential gain of 600 million board feet.

The Mass Timber Outlook unequivocally demonstrates that mass timber is and will be a force in the market for years. The SLB and its funded programs will use the analysis to help press the business case for mass timber construction, translating opportunity into consumption.

View the Mass Timber Outlook here, and listen to the SLB’s Nick Milestone speak about mass timber’s market potential in hybrid construction here.

Reminder – SLB Board Nominations Close April 20

The SLB seeks nominations of softwood lumber manufacturers and importers interested in candidacy for Board seats coming open in January 2022. Each director will serve a three-year term and may serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms. The deadline for nominations is April 20.

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

• Two seats representing the U.S. South
  • One company of any size
  • One small company
• Two large companies representing the U.S. West
• Two importers
  • One large company representing Canada West
  • One company of any size representing importers from any region

To be eligible, nominees operating within the regions named 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.¹

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

¹Based on a review of 2017–2019 data, companies that ship or import about 405 million board feet or more of assessable softwood lumber annually would be considered large.

SLB New Mailing Address

Please be advised that the SLB has a new mailing address:

2050 Beavercreek Road
Suite 101-397
Oregon City, OR 97045

The telephone number remains the same: 971-339-4934.

Think Wood Publishes Review of Embodied Carbon Policies, Best Practices

With funding from the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, Think Wood recently published Understanding the Role of Embodied Carbon in Climate Smart Buildings: Report on Carbon Reduction Policy and Design Best Practices, which reviews design best practices and embodied carbon policies in North America and Europe. The report was researched, written, and peer reviewed over the course of 2020. Its launch is timely, as “Addressing Climate Change” is the number one design trend in 2021 per Think Wood’s recent survey of 750 architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) stakeholders.

Think Wood undertook a broader AEC industry launch of the report in March that included dedicated email blasts to the Think Wood database, targeted social promotion, a promotional blog post, features on the What’s New page of the Think Wood website, and promotion at a sponsored webinar on the topic of Decarbonizing the Built Environment. Using the report as a springboard, several of Think Wood’s planned 2021 media partnerships will closely align to the topic of low-carbon construction.

Mark Your Calendar: International Mass Timber Conference Starts on March 30

The sixth annual International Mass Timber Conference will be held virtually March 30–April 1. Co-produced by WoodWorks and the Forest Business Network, this year's conference will feature more than 40 expert presentations, four education tracks, and scores of virtual exhibits, including a booth hosted by Think Wood. Additionally, there will be networking opportunities and curated building tours of recent, innovative mass timber projects. Register for the conference today at masstimberconference.com, and learn more here.

Catalyst Project Case Study Educates and Inspires

WoodWorks’ latest case study is inspiring and educating developers and design professionals by sharing an in-depth look at Catalyst, the five-story mass timber office building designed by Katerra and MGA | Michael Green Architecture for Eastern Washington University. Catalyst is notable for its sustainability and precedent-setting use of wood materials.

Catalyst is the first cross laminated timber (CLT) office building in Washington State and was designed to adhere to Passive House principles and achieve zero-carbon and zero-energy certifications. Catalyst is also one of the first buildings in North America to achieve a long span using true wood-to-wood composite action in its rib panels (instead of concrete composite action) and is one of the tallest U.S. buildings to include CLT shear walls. The project conducted destructive structural testing of critical CLT shear wall corner connections and full-scale rib panels at Oregon State University, where both stiffness and strength exceeded predictions and demonstrated that the system is replicable.

Salt Lake City First to Adopt New Off-Site Construction Standards

The Salt Lake City Council is the first jurisdiction to adopt the ICC/MBI Standard 1200: Standard for Off-Site Construction: Planning, Design, Fabrication, and Assembly and ICC/MBI Standard 1205: Standard for Off-Site Construction: Inspection and Regulatory Compliance. An American Wood Council (AWC) staff member serves on the ICC committee that developed the standards, which are set to be finalized in mid-2021 to be considered for reference in the 2024 International Building Code.

The new standards will be important to lightweight wood frame and mass timber construction; they aim to provide minimum requirements for off-site and modular construction to safeguard public health and safety.

D.C.-Based Mass Timber Project Benefits From WoodWorks’ Extensive Network

Designed by Hickok Cole, the 105,000-square-foot project at 80 M Street in Washington, D.C., features three stories of architecturally exposed mass timber on top of an existing seven-story commercial building. ARUP is the project’s structural and fire protection engineer, and Katerra is providing design assistance, materials, and installation. WoodWorks’ professional intersections with these team members run deep, especially with Katerra, which was a 2020 WoodWorks Market Development Partner and whose staff has served on WoodWorks’ board.

For questions about 80 M Street’s connection testing, Katerra knew to turn to WoodWorks, which provided support on perpendicular-to-grain values, holes in fire-rated glulam beams, and fire-rated connections, with an emphasis on how others have addressed these areas. WoodWorks’ input helped the team prepare for two-hour fire testing on the glulam connections, which was key to the project’s success.

80 M Street is under construction and is set to consume the equivalent of over 1.1 million board feet. When complete, it will be the first commercial office building in Washington, D.C., to feature new mass timber construction.

AWC Supports California Building Code Education, Development

The AWC presented a three-part webinar series to more than 90 California building code officials on tall mass timber provisions that were recently adopted into the 2019 California Building Code and come into effect this July. The first webinar provided an overview of tall mass timber construction; the second explained state-specific tall mass timber height and area provisions; and the third covered principles of fire resistance and protection, special inspections, acoustics, and energy performance. The California Building Officials Association hosted the series.

In addition, an AWC staff member was appointed to the state’s Building, Fire, and Other Committee, one of six California Building Standards Commission’s code advisory committees that review and make recommendations on code-change proposals submitted by state agencies.

Mass Timber and Hybrid Systems Well Suited for Commercial Construction

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.

Mass Timber Provides Solution for Century-Old Factory’s Vertical Expansion

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.

Concept Home Promotes Healthy Living

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.

Average Home Size Levels Off Following Years of Decline

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.