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from the sounds-like-heavy-duty-plywood dept.
Officials in Oregon have approved construction permits for the first all-wood high-rise building in the nation.
Construction on the 12-story building, called Framework, will break ground this fall in Portland's trendy and rapidly growing Pearl District and is expected to be completed by the following winter.
The decision by state and local authorities to allow construction comes after months of painstaking testing of the emerging technologies that will be used to build it, including a product called cross-laminated timber, or CLT.
To make CLT, lumber manufacturers align 2-by-4 boards in perpendicular layers and then glue them together like a giant sandwich before sliding the resulting panels into a massive press for drying. The resulting panels are stronger than traditional wood because of the cross-hatched layers; CLT can withstand horizontal and vertical pressures similar to those from a significant earthquake with minimal damage.
They are also lighter and easier to work with than regular timber, resulting in lower cost and less waste.
For this project, scientists at Portland State University and Oregon State University subjected large panels of CLT to hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure and experimented with different methods for joining them together.
Could cross-laminated timber revive the timber industry?
Previously: Can You Build A Safe, Sustainable Skyscraper Out Of Wood?
The Case for Wooden Skyscrapers
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 07 2017, @10:53PM (13 children)
People have been talking about this tech for a bit so why not try it and see if it actually works? I'm in a timber area too so anything that moves product sounds like a good idea. Trees are just a crop that takes a few years to grow.
And if it doesn't work this building looks like it is destined to mostly just be government subsidized housing so it ain't like they can complain. :)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:22PM (5 children)
there's far more homeless than there are shelter beds. The mayor instructed the police to avoid enforcing the camping ban, so now there's tents all over the city.
I live in subsidized housing now. It enabled me to get quite a good job; I'm going to start paying my own rent in August.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:48PM (1 child)
How DARE you suggest that helping homeless people could lead to anything but a lifetime of wasting our taxes on their newfound entitlement?
Have you no shame, rising all the way from the gutter to crush his misinformed ideology?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:08AM
I didn't want to blow the three grand a MacBook Pro would have required, so I only got a Mac mini.
I lost a consulting client because I was unable to do his work on a Hackintosh.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:52AM (2 children)
Congrats MDC!! It's great to hear that things are looking up.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:21AM (1 child)
I couldn't have done it without my Soylentil friends. It was you who convinced me that I'd be far more likely to get a job if I accepted the housing.
It had been repeatedly offered to me, but I refused it because I have no problem surviving on the street. I wanted that housing to go to someone who really needed it.
Community Services Northwest [csnw.org] practices "Housing First". This is predicated on the notion that getting someone into stable housing gets them off drugs, out of jail, out of mental hospitals and back to work. Prior to this, most shelters wouldn't accept addicts unless they stayed clean - often enforced with drug tests.
I'm not real sure how many times I was in jail or the booby hatch while I was homeless. In just over a year in my American Taxpayer-Paid For apartment, I've stayed out of jail, I've stayed out of the nuthouse, and I've gotten really good work. I couldn't ask for better coworkers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:53AM
There was a study published a year or so ago that said that it costs $80k/year/homeless person, because of the ER costs. It's cheaper to give people some housing and basic medical care.
What really gets me is the heartless people who think that people would rather live a shitty life in shitty subsidized housing than do a job if they had a chance. Yes, there are certainly some people who would do that, and people who are incapable of holding down a job (because of mental illness), but the rest: for the most part, I expect they would prefer to have a nicer life, even if it means working.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:34PM (6 children)
Or translated: "Fuck you, I am just about to receive mine"?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:49PM (5 children)
the vast majority of commercial timber is grown on tree farms. If you object to tree farming you should object to vegetable farming as well.
It is one of our most important exports to Asia.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:01AM (1 child)
Ya no problem when it is done correctly. Well, less of a problem and they're still working out the ecological details.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:48AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:37AM (1 child)
> the vast majority of commercial timber is grown on tree farms
in your country, maybe.
not in every country!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:13AM
Who needs farms? Just cut down the old-growth forests. Profit!
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/understanding-our-forests/our-forests/old-growth-forest [forestrytas.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:16PM
"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants." -A. Whitney Brown
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh