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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 Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:33PM (6 children)
Brick isn't a very good building material either, if you live in a place with seismic activity.
The Three Little Pigs never said anything about building with steel.
(Score: 2) by ragequit on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)
The Green Jello pigs used concrete.
The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:33PM
Concrete is a terrible building material if you have any seismic activity. Lots of 3rd-world cities have found this out the hard way.
Combine it with steel and things are totally different, however.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday June 09 2017, @08:35AM (3 children)
You mean in places like Greece? Apartment buildings over here used to be built on a frame made of reinforced concrete (including the floors) with walls made of hollow bricks. I live in such a building, built in 1963, which has withstood a couple of major earthquakes with nary a crack in the plaster. These days I believe that poured reinforced concrete is the norm, probably because it is quicker and, presumably, cheaper. The result is certainly not better, as hollow bricks are good heat and sound insulators, which concrete is not.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 09 2017, @01:37PM (2 children)
Yes, I mean any place where there's seismic activity. Bricks will fall, as will concrete. They can't withstand tensile stress at all.
Apartment buildings over here used to be built on a frame made of reinforced concrete
Oh, so you're talking about something completely different! So what exactly is your point anyway?
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Saturday June 10 2017, @07:12PM (1 child)
My point is that wood is not a very good building material.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday June 11 2017, @05:08AM
Until recently (when wood prices have gone up), it was better than most if you wanted a relatively small structure that was inexpensive and able to withstand seismic tremors. These days, it's gotten expensive so that it might not cost that much more to build a residential house out of steel, which has several big advantages, but several decades ago the cost difference was too great.