Inside America's mass timber movement 

It is such a relief to know that there a still people out there making beautiful things.

Architecture student here! I’m wrapping up my 4th year now, took a class entirely dedicated to mass timber and have used mass timber on almost half of my school projects. This comment section is fantastic, I love that this isn’t being politicized and that you all have done your homework. The class I took allowed me to see this stuff through every phase of its production. We visited a sustainable forest (where the workers are passionate and competent about ecological conservation), a sawmill where the dimensional lumber is cut and dried, and a mass timber production plant, and finally multiple mass timber buildings that are either completed or under construction on my campus (University of Arkansas). This stuff is really only at its infancy, the next new decades will take it to incredible places. I was surprised that the video didn’t touch on carbon sequestration much; essentially, mass timber buildings are giant carbon storage vessels. As long as the wood is being used, the carbon it stores is withheld from release back into the atmosphere. This is incredibly effective in mitigating the emissions that construction causes. They also didn’t talk about how engineered mass timber really is, it’s kind of insane. Each piece is scanned at the plant and 2x’s are connected long ways by finger joints, glued together. The length of each piece of lumber is analyzed to create the strongest glulam beam or clt slab possible, and tests are routinely ran to ensure strength. Moisture is also heavily considered, and lumber with similar MC (moisture content) is paired together to account for compression and expansion. I’ll stop my rambling now, but mass timber is really a fantastic building material that I’m excited to see further integrated into our built environment.

I don't like cutting down large patches of trees, either. But I'll be hard-pressed if you're trying to tell me that making buildings out of trees is somehow worse for the environment than steel and concrete. Steel and concrete involve a lot of energy and resources to produce. Timber... that literally grows on trees and requires a lot less effort to prepare.

I live in the building in Milwaukee. Love it. The wood adds so much warmth and character to our unit

Those are not clearcuts, those are cut blocks. Timber is 100% renewable and sustainable, while steel is not and concrete is INCREDIBLY water-intensive. Its not about "how high" can a mass timber structure go, its about the elimination of need for structural supports at regular intervals (like the steel in a concrete building) because the CLT wood itself has structural properties. So building with mass timber allows for more open space, flexibility with the layout. Thats why it is used for community centres, museums, and such, this airport in Portland etc.

I’ve been a wildland firefighter for many years. Some years take me to Oregon, Washington and Northern California. The amount of trees lost to old age and or the environment needs to be witnessed. Selective cutting is a great way to save forest. Idaho and Montana also have some great forest. Working closely with the US Forest Service we enter some extremely protective areas where we cannot start any type of motor (chainsaw). This country could diversify more in the building materials used.

There are no other building materials that are as carbon negative as timber. The fact that we lack an industry willing to harvest in a sustainable manner is a separate issue that must be solved, but what problem does CLT end? Concrete. It ends dependence on all-concrete and steel structures, which are incredibly carbon intensive. There are simply no better alternatives for being carbon-negative, and the idea that we need to iron out the timber industries' notably lax adherence to regulation, as well as tightening and revising current regulations, shouldn't be a show-stopper, but an obvious first step.

Hope its not like the wood i bought from home depot. Straight today, curly fry tomorrow.

Calling those areas clear cuts is such dishonest propaganda, not to mention the selective avoidance of discussing carbon sequestration. Having spent a good portion of my life in them, the PNW forests are incredibly well maintained and have been managed effectively for decades now. It’s much harder to do the Nordic type selective cutting in the PNW due to the tree sizes and slopes.

I'm a logger. Trees are farmed these days and managed very well. We should use more of the tree. We leave all kinds of materials in the woods as a by product. We could easily grind the scraps and make pellets to use in the coal fired electrical plants. We need more forward thinking people running our country and less of the rich cronies who only care about themselves and their friends. Lining pockets at the expense of natural resources and the American public.

Trees are the most renewable resource on the planet. Traps carbon and they grow back.

Wood: lighter than concrete or steel, stronger than steel when dried properly, cheaper to produce than either if farmed correctly and more resistant to collapse than steel in a fire for a longer time period, oddly enough. Once steel hits around 500 F it begins to lose all strength and bends, causing structural integrity to fail. Wood chars on the outside, but takes longer to burn to the point of failure, the charring actually acting as an insulator until it burns off. Besides, wood doesn't melt...

I’m an architectural student and I had a hard time believing that would was better for the environment, but after trying my best to disprove it I wound up accidentally proving that they were right. I think so much of it is that we have to look at it not just from seedling to finish product but the entire cycle of when we demolition these buildings, concrete and steel buildings are relatively useless after their demolition the concrete can’t be reused it just becomes more that has to be dealt with and steel is difficult to reclaim. Meanwhile is a recyclable product. We can use it as biomass we can turn it into paper we can do all number of things with the cellulose after it serves its purpose as a structure. Also the fact that we cut down the forest but we replant it, we keep the carbon cycle going of using trapped carbon from the atmosphere which is what wood is it is a byproduct of the tree stripping CO2 from the air and then we’re going to lock that away in a structure and replant the forest to continue the cycle. I can’t put enough emphasis on how much I did not want to believe that this was the right thing to do but when you compare it to mining iron ore all the processing the smelting the transportation and then we’re not gonna get into the concrete and how much energy it takes to create and transport concrete. Unbelievably the greatest thing to do is to use trees and replant. And on a very personal note, I would rather make structures using the beauty of wood than the cold despotic aesthetic of concrete. And if I am going to use concrete, I would rather use it as a reinforcement for reinforced rammed earth which beautifully complements wood. I’m going to add one concern i have and that’s bio diversity of the species of wood we are cutting. I am very concerned about becoming a mono culture where we find a tree that produces the most amount of straight timber and we only plant that it would make a forest extremely susceptible to fungus and insects and all mater if parasites. I think it’s very important that if this is the future that we make sure it’s a genetically sustainable future.

I live in the heart of forest plantations. The trees that are here were planted by the loggers and forest managers themselves. It is farming. They clear cut to plant another crop of trees. Yes it doesn’t look good right after it is harvested but in a few years it is a beautiful new forest. It is amazing how fast these pine trees grow. This is not “green washing” or deforestation. What takes our forests and country life away is city growth.

I’m a long time woodworker but when they talked about fire safety I immediately remembered Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

Those softwoods from clear cutting, will be replaced within 20 to 30 years to cut again, if that. It's one of the reasons conifers are used in a lot of construction. They grow fast, have good strength, excellent flexibility, and are a lot easy to cut and mill, as well as lighter to transport, than hardwood. Hardwood on the other hand, is great for high use wear, such as desk, tables, counters, floors, and more. Both have their pros and cons, but to sensationalize clear cutting trees that grow extremely fast, is not the same as clear cutting hundred to thousand year old tress in a hardwood forest, that do not regrow in 20 years. If anything, cutting, regrowing, cutting, regrowing softwoods is a form of carbon capture.

Anyone who spends time in the woods knows that we need to cut more timber today. Having cut areas in the forest makes a wildlife magnet, full of life.

I watched the building in Seattle being built. It was honestly amazing how quickly that building went up. It took about a week for the floors to be installed. I’ve never seen a multi story building go up so quickly.

That airport roof just looks like it was framed, but never finished......

Heard of this before this video. My first exposure to this was years ago with the term "Engineered Wood". There's a very old ad showing an engineered floor joist system with an elephant standing on it. Anyone remember that ? Maybe it's about time for this. Steel is an amazing building material, but is there no way of getting an aesthetic look from it without sheet rock, and drop ceilings ?

The Airport in Cebu Philippines is a beautiful example of a large timber building. It looks amazing.

Largest mass timber building is in Milwaukee

You know what's more fire resistant than wood..... steel

as long as old growth trees remain protected, +areas really replanted, more will support this.

Noticed a building in Seattle near UW being build with timber recently. Pretty cool

I've been designing commercial architectural millwork for 25 years, glulams have been used for a long time but mostly for high end leed projects, they are not cheap.

Ha ha, only out West would they use renewables to build and someone says it’s bad for the environment. Plant the trees again and they will grow back. We have been doing this in the South for decades. Our National Forest is a resource that gets used and replanted.

In Marquette, Michigan on the campus of Northern Michigan University: Superior Dome The Superior Dome has been home to the Wildcat football team since its construction in 1991 and is now also home to the Wildcat soccer team and the Wildcat track teams. The Dome stands 14 stories high and encompasses 5.1 acres under its roof. Constructed of 781 Douglas Fir beams and 108.5 miles of fir decking, the Dome has a permanent seating capacity of 8,000, although the building can hold as many as 16,000 people.

Our company owns a 6 story stone building built in 1910 sitting on pine tree piles sunk deep into what was essentially a beach. Mass timber is completely viable

Are the adhesives used to manufacture the timber , along with the varnishes and paint detail products, contain the same fire protective extinguishing property component present , in a common fire extinguisher dispenser canister?

There is an 18 story almost 300 foot all wood building in Norway that was finished 2019. It was the tallest all wood building until the Ascent building in Milwaukee was completed in 2022.

The piece didn't adress the other "green" aspect of mass timber and that is the carbon sequestered in the wood. Trees take remove carbon dioxide and use it to build mass. By using the timber you're holding onto that sequestred carbon and allowing new trees to grow and take in even more. The building is going to remove that carbon from the cycle for hopefully 60 or 70 years.

As an Oregonian, I feel like I've seen this story before.

Why no comparison to the carbon intensity of producing steel and concrete?

No wonder prices for lumber have gone through the roof!

That’s beautiful.

Are they bringing in the cool carpet from the old airport terminal?

Could you imagine a major city built like this, awesome

Kind of surprised that they didn't mention building skyscrapers out of bamboo. Even stronger than most woods, and very sustainable

Protect old growth, cutting trees every 20 years is so sad, you'll never get to see the big big old trees :(

Timber is the most innovative and natural infrastructure material. Better than steal yet it give aesthetics and natural feeling that mixes to the nature

2 billion dollars for an airport..2 billion dollars.

Beautiful!

"We produce more timber than we are consuming..." Then why is wood so much more expensive now?

I'm concerned that this will drive up the price of wood for residential projects.

Seeing stuff like this makes me hopeful and excited for the future.

My workplace burned to the ground 3 years ago, all 4 buildings-all made of wood, now rebuilding with concrete floors and steel structure, the architect priced the 6000 sq feet of wood flooring like we had- maple, and it was way too expensive no matter what he tried.

We have a building in town used to be a huge grocery store, now it's an athletic facility, well over 70 years old, the roof is supported by 12 massive arched beams with wide open floor space, the beams are one of the reasons the building has been preserved, everyone grew up in awe of them, quite the talk back in the day I guess, apparently even started a beam war with another grocery store who copied the concept, only they had to cut the budget and ended up with straight beams that need a few posts under them.

How many trees have they cut?

Clearcutting is actually good as long as it's replanted. Trees convert co2 to wood where it's sequestered forever when used as lumber.

Nobody wanna talk about what lives in are ever diminishing, fire ravaged forests or have we just moved on from that?

roof looks amazing. I don't want to dust it.

Glued laminated Bamboo is another option. The best thing about Bamboo is how fast it grows. "Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant on Earth, to the tune of growing about 35 inches (89 cm) per day or up to 1.5 inches (≈4 cm) per hour for the faster species". Then you could grow faster on a industrial scale then what you can use. The cool thing about laminated wood is it can sustain fire better and longer then steel. Steel will start to deform and bend after certain degree of heat while the wood produces protective layer of char...

They did not talk about the carbon sequestration aspect of mass timber construction. Concrete and steel production emits carbon into the atmosphere in the production of the materials. Timber (trees) absorbs carbon from the environment and mass timber construction locks that carbon inside buildings. However, environmental ecosystem fragmentation cannot be ignored. Habitat reduction is already critical and more emphasis on logging is just going to make that situation worse. Bottom line - there are too many people and we need too many buildings and the buildings we want are too big. We've got to live lighter in the planet. So... build a yurt!

what is the exterior finish that is used for exposed wood in the elements? or is it the same resin formulation that is used when the wood is pressure treated in its earlier engineering process?

I don't see this aging well. What kind of chemicals are they using in the adhesives and to provide fire resistance? We may find that just because it's 'wood' doesn't mean those chemicals turn it into a toxic mess long term. Meanwhile concrete and steel are pretty benign in that regard.

Trees are made of carbon. You can sustainably harvest them. We've been doing it for a long time. I believe at this point we should never cut down old growth forest. Steel isn't too bad for carbon footprint (depending on where the steel is being produced) but cement production produces a significant amount of CO2. For buildings of a certain height (midrise), mass timber is likely the most carbon friendly structural building material.

Now we know why consumers have to pay a ridiculous price for lumber.

The price of wood today is outrageous since covid. Pure GREED

What company leads the way in responsibly harvesting the wood for these projects?

The argument for using wood at that level is actually good resource management.

Ever see a wheat or corn field after the crop has been harvested? Why is that clear cutting and then replanting ok?

Clearly they don't have termites in Oregon.

Did I hear that correct? “America is producing more wood than is consumed”. If so, why is it so damn expensive still?

Having our public forests burn down because they are so overgrown isn’t so green; sustainable harvesting practices and replanting is possible.

I work in a mass timber building, and at first it was interesting. Over a year later, the giant glued wooden beams are splitting left and right. It may not ultimately affect the building but it is concerning to see.

The ceiling is just a giant dust collector.

My neighbour would have a heart attack because she loves her trees at the back of the property and she had a hissy fit when they got chopped down

Likely more trees are lost due to out of control wildfires each year. Better management and harvesting could be possible in theory

Price.

“marginally more expensive”. Says no homeowner, shopping for lumber in the past 4 years.

Besides a little bit of bamboo, some straw bale and Cobb, timber is the only building product we grow. We mine, synthesize, or manufacture the rest …

It never matters if they don’t replant trees

I get a kick from Chris Evan's logging boots in the shop. Nice costume champ!

These folks respect wood

Europeans always make jokes about our wooden structures that fly away like huts once a hurricane hits

How many projects of this nature can our forests withstand? 🥺

Huge wooden hanger was built during the WWII era was destroyer by fire just a few years ago . They stood by and watched saying it was too dangerous to do anything.

This is my twin project at ZGF Architecture

Does it fall apart when it gets wet like OSB ?

I wonder how you dust that ceiling....

Some other critical issues need to be mentioned.... Wood sequesters carbon, while concrete production is one of the biggest CO2 offenders on the planet. Concrete requires mining of the ingredients, which obviously has permanent impact on local ecologies, unlike cutting trees which can be easily replaced. And when/if the building ever needs to be demolished, that wood can be used for many things while the concrete will be mostly useless rubble.

"Pioneering the technology" of gluing 2x4s together?

The ironic part is that wood buildings have been known to last thousands of years with proper design but concrete and steel buildings barely last 50-80 years before needing serious refurbishing/replacement.

Future of building

How, exactly, does the planner expect his airport to be a place where people are going to flock to "hang out"? That seems like a big reach; I can't see anyone paying expensive AF parking fees and dealing with the security measures to just kick it there, no matter how much wood gets used to nice the place up. And this doesn't even get to the cost of PDX's "hang suite". Even if you can't get back to the concourses without a boarding pass, the food and drinks in the main hall alone won't even leave you with money for the ride home. I get the distinct feeling that Mr. Project there probably has a TSA skip-the-line card and plenty of money for $20 cheeseburgers...and can't fathom why someone might NOT. So, SO very Portland.😐

No worries guys they have really good sprinkler systems.

We have a bunch of homeless that need a place to hang out. Im sure they would be appreciative for the place to hang out instead of living on the streets. Thank you for the invitation!

Interesting report.

As long as the building stands, that's carbon removed from the atmosphere. Grow more and capture more carbon.

I know I didn't just hear someone say that he thinks we should all go through TSA checkpoints to just hang out with each other.

Beavers: Mm.. Bout to act up.. Firefighters: Gawd dayum, I'm uh clap and bust!

As a fledgling industry, we have no data on the longevity of the material. Unfortunately, it will be at least a generation before any data can even begin to be compiled.

the world's most flammable airport

Timber gets difficult for tall projects. The compression strength of timber is much much less than concrete and the trnsile strength is less than steel. So reinforced concrete excels at really tall buildings.

It would be awesome to see Japanese/craftsman architectural elements be applied to these structures. Concrete is not sustainable. The shortages and pricing in our area keep getting worse. Many don’t know, but steel looses a majority of its strength at only 400 degrees and mass timber often requires less fireproofing measures.

Not to mention, one company controls the vast majority of the concrete in this country.

I love the look of natural wood but I'm not buying the safety aspect of it.

If we rotated only about 30 percent of the timber stands on the western cascades. It would provide all the timber the US needs annually.

I have a friend that moved up north and has over 1 million trees. Set to be ready for harvest in about 6 years but they payout will be tremendous. Will just repeat after and wait for the next payout.