Wooden skyscrapers: efficient, fire-safe, environmentally friendly(ier)

An architect named Michael Green believes he can make wooden skyscrapers that stand 100 storeys tall, and he's prototyping the idea with a 30-storey wooden building in Vancouver. More wooden high-rises are planned in Austria and Norway. Green uses laminated strand lumber, a glue/wood composite, and has char buffers to give it good safety in fires. He claims that his buildings can be cheaper than comparable structures made from traditional steel and concrete, and will have a smaller carbon footprint.

Wood buildings lock in carbon dioxide for the life cycle of a structure, while the manufacture of steel and concrete produces large amounts of CO2 -- the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate that for every 10 kilos of cement created, six to nine kilos of CO2 are produced.
Green's "Tallwood" structure is designed with large panels of laminated strand lumber -- a composite made of strands of wood glued together. Other mass timber products use layers of wood fused together at right angels that making they immensely strong and able to be used as lode bearing infrastructure, walls and floors.
Despite being made of wood any worries about towering infernos should be banished, says Green, as large timber performs well in fires with a layer of char insulating the structural wood beneath.
"It may sound counter-intuitive, but performing well in a fire is something inherent in large piece of wood, that's why in forest fires the trees that survive are the largest ones," he says.

Can wooden skyscrapers transform concrete jungles?(via Dvice)

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MORE: canada • Engineering • Environment • materials • urban planning

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http://blog.tysonwilliams.com/ Tyson Williams

Until termites find out about it…
- http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar
  
  I don’t think termites will like the glue component.
miasm

I imagine there would have to be some kind of design feature which deals with the ‘settling sounds’ of warm wooden buildings at night.
bcsizemo

So what about bow and sag as the building ages…? Last I checked concrete and steel don’t deform with time or humidity (with in reason).
- Daniel Smith
  
  Wood laminates actually perform very well. The resin impregnation makes them moisture and humidity resistant, and compressed laminates are extremely strong for their weight, much stronger than regular old wood.
  
  That being said, I seriously doubt wood skyscrapers are the wave of the future.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Aguirre/10601304 John Aguirre

Are we ignoring the fact that a small forest of trees would have to be felled to build this thing?
- czak ivanovic
  
  http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hts/pubs/jubilee_ubc.pdf
  
  We would like to sell that small forest of trees worth of wood to you. It’s being built in Vancouver for a reason…
  - furono
    
    Couldn’t that “small forest” be used for something better than an all wood building? Isn’t a better reason like providing oxygen? With the rain forest about to disappear do you think this is a great use of resources?
    - Vincent
      
      We have enough oxygen, that’s not really a selling point, though we would like to absorb more carbon-dioxide, so chopping down a forest and growing a new one is a rather good idea.
      
      And arguing against chopping down one particular forest because the rain-forest is disappearing is like arguing against anyone eating anything until we have feed all the starving poor. It’s not really constructive moving towards the goal.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        And arguing against chopping down one particular forest because the rain-forest is disappearing is like arguing against anyone eating anything until we have feed all the starving poor.
        
        Shockingly, different forests contain different and unique species.
    - howaboutthisdangit
      
      Ideally, they would harvest mature trees which are not pulling much CO2 out of the air, and plant new trees which will capture more CO2 as they grow.
    - czak ivanovic
      
      They’ll use wood from the interior of BC, the coastal rainforesty stuff is too valuable to chew up into strands.
- JProffitt71
  
  I think that is why the “(ier)” is appended to the friendly in the title. Based on how much energy it takes to make the materials for a traditional skyscraper, perhaps a small forest is in fact a smaller price. Goes to show just how much it takes to make our buildings.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Do you know how much wood is involved in building non-wooden buildings? Lots.
- http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland
  
  Why not use bamboo? Grows fast, eminently replaceable.
  
  Or engineered cellulose products?
  - http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar
    
    Bamboo is, as far as I know, not dense enough for this type of structure (and has nearly no isolating features). You can build 20m high scaffolding, though.
    - Daniel Smith
      
      Actually, bamboo scaffolding has been used for the construction of a 71 story structure…a bit more than 20m…
      
      http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-05-31/news/0105310236_1_bamboo-hong-kong-sung-dynasty/2
- http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
  
  No, we’re not ignoring that fact. It’s addressed in the linked article:
  
  Cutting down trees to make buildings doesn’t immediately sound eco-friendly either, but if sourced from sustainably managed forests (like those in Europe and North America), it can be more environmentally sensitive.
Clevername

How many stories down will the sound of upstairs neighbors walking in heavy shoes carry? From the artist’s conception in the story, it looks like those timbers are pretty exposed so I hope for the sake of the occupants that the weather resistance testing was very good.
- http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
  
  Many existing buildings have wooden floors, and they can be damped and soundproofed.
http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Tomorrow/100000059681060 George Tomorrow

Jenga!
wrwetzel

Regarding fire safety… I remember visiting a barn that had serious damage from a fire. It was built mostly of wood but had one steel I-beam, probably to support ceiling joists. After the fire the I-beam was draped like a ribbon over charred wooden beams. The heat of the fire softened the I-beam enough that it could bend under its own weight while the wooden beams retained some strength, despite the charring. The sight of that made such an impression on me that I can recall it now, 46 years later.
- http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar
  
  There are even trees who need fire. They make no (or not many) seeds until a fire comes by.
  - http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
    
    Hyrbid idea: wooden buildings that spawn building-seedlings when burned. The heat melts resin and tensioned-wood projects them outward from the nest….
  - Brad H.
    
    Tell me about it. I’m surrounded by them.
http://twitter.com/Kbkibbe Kevin

This would burn like a Roman Candle thanks to the gigantic draft potential of 100 stories. This is nothing but a joke, or perhaps a high school level design project.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Your credentials?
  - http://twitter.com/Kbkibbe Kevin
    
    My credentials? I’ve seen a fire before. Stacking wood with lots of air gaps and tons of flammable
    crap that the people living in it are going to bring spells disaster plain and simple. This is NOTHING but a publicity stunt. It’s not real.
    - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
      
      Despite being made of wood any worries about towering infernos should be banished, says Green, as large timber performs well in fires with a layer of char insulating the structural wood beneath.
      
      “It may sound counter-intuitive, but performing well in a fire is something inherent in large piece of wood, that’s why in forest fires the trees that survive are the largest ones,” he say
      
      And for more information…
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

Something tells me this wouldn’t last more than a second if a plane crashed into it.
http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty

Angels? Lodes?

Certainly worth investigating more. Wood is surprising sometimes. At the 1987 Kings Cross Tube fire, the wooden escalator steps did not burn as much as you’d expect, despite the blazing greasy fluff underneath them.
- http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman
  
  Right! Angels… :)
- oasisob1
  
  Hey let me get into a lode-bearing structure; I’ll be rich!
- IronEdithKidd
  
  CNN uses autocomplete and employs no editors.
  
  *facepalm*
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

“Laminated strand composite” is to wood what fibreglass is to glass, really. All timber-related weaknesses most go out the window when you’re discussing timber composite materials. I do wonder with the impact/origin of the glue is.
hungryjoe

His forest fire analogy is flawed. While the biggest trees in the forest remain standing, they are substantially diminished by the fire. They remain standing because the only load they carry are their own, and they’re not 1000′ tall. Any of his engineered wood products may still exist after a fire, but they will be weakened. Combined with the load and weather effects of a 100 story skyscraper, and you may get a nasty failure.

I also wonder what effect the tremendous heat of a fire would have on the resins in the wood.

All that said, this is a neat idea. For the environmental naysayers, consider how much waste is involved in stick-built single family homes or apartments. Not just in the structure, but in the wasteful use of the landscape (and landscaping).
- SKR
  
  Steel and concrete can be weakened byfire as well. The key is whether the structure fails or not and heavy timber performs admirably in that respect.
SKR

I’m more concerned about the compressive strength being able to support the dead load of 100 stories than fire.
- Daniel Saraga
  
  That was my thought exactly. Wouldn’t it collapse under its own weight, and what about the weight of the occupants’ possessions as well?
frozenintime

Build them underground instead of going upwards.
- http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar
  
  Because people like to be in a bunker with no windows.
  - oasisob1
    
    That’s where I work.
    - http://aqfl.net Ant
      
      Underground rule!
James B

I build some furniture, and do some welding, and studied calc based statics/dynamics, and all that, so I’m no expert, but somewhat informed on material properties. Here are some things that concern me:

- What happens to adhesives in the laminate when they are exposed to high (fire) temperature? The burn through time might be good on the laminated pieces, but as the piece heats up does the adhesive fail?

- What happens to the wood if it gets wet, say a leaky pipe behind the wall? Wouldn’t the lignin start to break down and cause structural failures under load?

- It gets cold in Canada. I’m guessing the moisture content of the wood used in the laminations is in the single digit percentages. But frozen wood is a different beast than climate controlled. What if the power goes off in high winds and low temps?

Hopefully the ASTM already thought of all this, and test for it to help spec the design criteria. But I’ll bet they just do ‘damp condition’ testsing, and don’t let water run down one side of a timber for years on end, then test under thousands of tons of load.
http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

Thought experiments: how tall could one build a structure out of living trees/plants? Assuming that the vegetation is the core support structure.

What advantages would be gained by using living materials vs. engineered composites of those materials?
- http://mjfgates.myopenid.com/ mjfgates
  
  Living trees top out at about 430 feet– it’s the physics of how they pump water up out of the roots. The last fifty feet are kind of … on the edge, if you know what I mean. So, don’t count on your treehouse being more than about 350 feet tall.
  - clasqm
    
    Also, how may centuries/milennia are you prepared to wait for your living skyscraper to grow? If you gengineer them to grow faster the looser ring structure means less strength.
emo hex

Can wooden cars not be next.
- oasisob1
  
  Wooden FLYING cars!
  - formosaman
    
    Pretty common to build wooden planes in the past, the Mosquito is a quite famous WW2 example and worked extremely well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito
    It too used a combination of woods laminated together for strength.
  - http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
    
    is “self-propelled” a necessary property of “flying”?
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballista
    
    scale ‘em up, and throw ‘em out….. projectile wooden cars with wings glide own for a happy landing-drive…
- Brad H.
  
  Tell that to Morgan. Stubborn bastards use a wooden frame for their cars and are still made and owned in England. Get with the times.
starfish and coffee

Having grown up in a wooden house I have learned to love the loud cracking noises wood beams make as they expand or contract when the temperature changes during the day. But it freaks the fuck out of visitors.
I wonder how these wood skyscrapers would sound?

Btw, the noise comes from the joints I think, not the beams as such.
- http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
  
  Those are from contiguous beams — what about the laminate-composites referenced in the article? do they have the same audio-expansion-compression issues?
Ryan Matheuszik

I note that the architect does not address how this proposed structure would perform in an earthquake. We live in an earthquake zone here in Vancouver.
skeptacally

we could bring down the price a tad if we got sweden to design them. AND we could assemble them using nothing but allen keys.