August 2024

SLB’s Mass Timber Accelerator Programs Expand Demand for Wood Construction

As cities across the globe intensify their efforts to lower their carbon footprint, mass timber has emerged as a revolutionary material in sustainable construction. In response to this growing trend, the SLB has partnered on mass timber accelerator programs in Boston, New York City, and Atlanta and is seeking additional cities and program partners for 2026.

The SLB is inviting cities with strong decarbonization goals to join this movement by applying for funding and project support for their own mass timber accelerator programs. With the success of the inaugural programs, the SLB is working to expand its impact and support the growth of mass timber construction nationwide. The accelerators utilize matching funds from the USDA Forest Service and other programs, amplifying the SLB’s $50,000 investment to support a total project budget of $100,000 to $250,000 per selected city.

Share the press release below with city officials in your region and encourage them to express interest and request more information from the SLB to help build a greener, more sustainable urban landscape.

The AWC Secures $6 Million EPA Grant and Launches 2024 LCA Survey to Strengthen Industry’s Environmental Data

The AWC is continuing its efforts to strengthen the wood product industry’s sustainability data collection efforts through the launch of its yearly Life Cycle Survey and a recent grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. Last month, the AWC was notified that it had been selected for a $6 million grant from the EPA that will further support the industry’s transparency efforts. 

The EPA grant, which was funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will help fund continued development of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Product Category Rules (PCRs). With a focus on reducing embodied carbon in the built environment, the grant will fund a variety of projects over a five-year period including developing an EPD generator, a funding mechanism to support mills as they develop their own EPDs, and programs to help educate AEC firms on whole building life cycle assessments.

The EPA grant will join other AWC efforts, like the Life Cycle Survey, that work to ensure the sustainability story of wood products is data-backed and meets the needs of the market. Providing precise carbon impact data is necessary to be credible with the design community and is becoming the industry standard for material specification.

This year’s Life Cycle Survey launched August 1, and for the first time, the survey is open to non-AWC member companies and mills. This expansion is funded by the Wood Innovations Grant the AWC received last year and will further strengthen the survey’s data and subsequent life cycle assessments (LCAs) and EPDs produced.

Last year's data is currently being used to develop regional EPDs for a range of structural wood products, including softwood lumber, softwood plywood, OSB, LVL, and glulam. These geographically specific EPDs are helping meet the growing market and regulatory demands for transparent environmental performance reports.

We encourage all U.S. mills to take part in this year’s survey as your responses directly impact and strengthen our industry’s data and further demonstrate that U.S. wood products are truly the leader in environmentally friendly, low-carbon building materials. The data from the survey will continue to demonstrate the industry’s commitment to transparent data collection and set the standard for EPD transparency.

The Life Cycle Survey is open to all SLB investors. If you would like to participate, contact Anna Ostrander at aostrander@awc.org.

Campaign Showcases Prefab Light-Frame Construction for Multifamily Developers

A recent Think Wood project profile put the spotlight on a construction type that doesn’t typically get a lot of buzz in traditional multifamily industry trade media: mid-rise light-frame construction. Lifestyle Communities’ LC Germantown in Nashville, Tennessee, is a 4.5-acre, 450,000-square-foot mixed-use development with a mix of four- to six-story buildings. The developer hoped to create an environment that would attract renters with a walkable streetscape that nods to historic neighborhoods and creates an unmistakably urban feel. The community’s achievement of that goal earned it recognition as the National Association of Home Builders “Community of the Year” in its 2024 Best in American Living Awards.

Think Wood’s unique angle on this story showed how offsite prefabrication and light-frame construction were critical to a speedy and affordable construction process — and didn’t require the developer to sacrifice the unique character it hoped to achieve. 

“With LC Germantown, we wanted to take a more novel approach, dividing the development into different buildings, scales, and configurations, giving it an animated, civic and heritage-like presence,” says Mike Sullivan, principal designer at Memphis-based LRK, which designed the community. “We likely saved months with this simplified, prefab light-frame method. Everything happens quickly when all the materials are right there ready to go.”

WoodWorks Tours Often a Tipping Point for Architects and Developers

WoodWorks building tours continue to be a tipping point, generating project conversion leads by encouraging developers and architecture, engineering, and construction professionals to pursue their own projects — and request the support they need to be successful. Recent examples include:

• Texas – After a WoodWorks tour of an office project, an architect sought WoodWorks’ support for their own six-story mass timber office.
• California – Following a tour of a multifamily project, two architects requested assistance for an eight-story residential development. It is their first mass timber project.
• Maryland – A tour of a student center led an architect to request assistance for a 180,000-square-foot K-8 school. The project is Type II-B, which allows mass timber in select locations. WoodWorks is helping them pursue wood for the roof, cafeterias, and gymnasiums.
• Washington – After meeting WoodWorks on a third-party tour, a general contractor downloaded the Mass Timber Construction Manual and requested a lunch and learn. Their company typically works in steel, but recently won a mass timber bid. The GC later said the presentation was “like taking a master-level class in mass timber.”

WoodWorks Support Helps Engineering Firm Grow Beyond Precast Concrete

Each month, the SLB features a new wood project that demonstrates the real-world results of the programs funded by the SLB. This month features a six-story light-frame multifamily project where WoodWorks support helped convince an engineering firm to look beyond precast concrete systems.

When Devita Structural Engineer Mark Hufstetler contacted WoodWorks with a question about firewalls in townhouses, he also mentioned that his firm had started on a large Type III light-frame project — a 253-unit luxury apartment building in Richmond, Virginia, being developed as part of the new Ellison by Flournoy Development brand.

A WoodWorks Regional Director offered to present a lunch and learn on the nuances of Type III projects. The presentation focused on areas that commonly present challenges, including the design and detailing of exterior walls, intersections, and balconies.

A few months later, Structural Engineer Jason Tam followed up with questions specific to their project. Since the presentation, he had attended a WoodWorks webinar on the design of mid-rise light-frame buildings and two on mass timber. He wanted to discuss stud packs in exterior walls and detailing of their particular exterior/demising wall intersection. The Regional Director clarified the code requirements and shared a detail he could use for that condition.

The 250,000-square-foot Ellison Museum District is projected to use 13.1 bf/sq. ft. and is expected to be ready for occupancy in 2026. With Devita building on its expertise in mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering and precast concrete to expand its structural engineering team, WoodWorks’ relationship with the firm could lead to increased consideration of wood structural systems in future projects.

“The Regional Director’s presentation and our subsequent conversations with her were incredibly helpful in understanding the ins and outs of Type III construction,” Tam says. “WoodWorks documents, such as the five stories over podium slab design example, are useful references when refining the workflow for this and future projects.” 

Developer Makes the Case that Panelized Prefab Wood Systems Can Help “Fundamentally Broken” Housing Model

Developer Aaron van Schaik recognizes that the housing shortage afflicting cities across the country and the globe is a complex problem. “Unless we make a radical change in the way we design and deliver housing, we will continue to chase and fail to meet housing goals,” says the founder of SuperLA, a design and development startup, in a Q&A with Dwell. “The current housing supply model is fundamentally broken.”

SuperLA’s approach to this problem is a design with panelized, prefabricated wood construction, a solution that the SLB and its funded programs are supporting for both light-frame and mass timber systems. SuperLA is using both light-frame and CLT, which it selected for environmental and construction speed reasons, as well as the material’s ability to connect residents with nature. 

A Think Wood profile of SuperLA’s SuperBungalows project takes a deeper look at how the firm’s approach to wood construction is evolving with each project. After its first project was constructed with light-frame wood walls built on site and panelized CLT floors and roofs, a second property will be assembled with light-frame prefab walls and five-ply CLT floors and roofs—all arriving using just-in-time sequencing and expected to go up in just four weeks.

Despite the current slowdown throughout commercial real estate, strong fundamentals for the housing market mean that new investment in medium- and high-density housing is inevitable. Through marketing and education, direct project support, and involvement in codes and standards development, the SLB and its funded programs are working to expand market share for wood construction — work that will drive new growth for lumber demand.