Taller buildings constructed with wood

For fire code reasons, wood construction has been capped at about 5 floors-stories, although when constructed on top of a one or two story concrete podium, the total height can be 6-7 floors.

At 18 stories, Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal, Norway was for a time the tallest timber building in the world.  It's now second tallest.

For the past few years, there's been a great deal of research and change in standards allowing for the frame construction of taller buildings ("Rethinking Code Requirements for "Tall Wood" Buildings," Architect Magazine; "Could Tall Wood Construction Be the Future of High-Rise Buildings?," ArchDaily).

Asian and Nordic countries have been leaders in pushing the changes forward ("Voll Arkitekter's Mjøstårne in Norway becomes world's tallest timber tower," Dezeen).

Constructing buildings in wood instead of concrete and metal creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and as a cost advantage requires less labor and can be done in part using modular construction techniques in off site facilities.



Rendering: Imagefiction.

The Wall Street Journal reports ("Country’s Tallest Wooden Building Rising in Cleveland") that a building is being constructed in Cleveland.

-- Presentation
-- "Harbor Bay's Intro project: Here comes the neighborhood," Crain's Cleveland Business

At 9 stories, it's not so much "tall" as it is wide. From the article:

The nine-story development, dubbed Intro, will include 298 apartments, retail space and an event venue. It is being built primarily with mass timber, a type of pressed wood that is gaining popularity as a climate-friendly alternative to steel and concrete.

The developer, Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors LLC, hopes that the new Cleveland building will become a blueprint for others to follow. It is also betting that the pandemic won’t cool demand for transit-oriented apartments in big cities. ...

The nine-story development, dubbed Intro, will include 298 apartments, retail space and an event venue. It is being built primarily with mass timber, a type of pressed wood that is gaining popularity as a climate-friendly alternative to steel and concrete.

The developer, Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors LLC, hopes that the new Cleveland building will become a blueprint for others to follow. It is also betting that the pandemic won’t cool demand for transit-oriented apartments in big cities. ...

If done right, making beams and floors from wood emits about half as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the production of steel and concrete, said Galina Churkina, a senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Trees also remove carbon from the atmosphere, turning wooden buildings into carbon vaults. That could help slow down global warming.

But there is also a risk that a boom in timber construction could accelerate global deforestation if the wood isn’t harvested in a sustainable way, she said.

A couple months ago I wrote about the sameness and architectural homogeneity of podium-based buildings ("Why new apartment buildings all look the same"). Wood construction might foster more attractive design.

As importantly, it can allow for taller buildings and greater density compared to current techniques, and over the long term, lessen housing appreciation.