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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 19 2014, @05:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the chip-off-the-old-block dept.

The Center for American Progress reports:

North America's tallest modern all-wood building is nearing completion in Prince George, British Columbia [...] Other wood buildings are in the works across the world as it gains a reputation for climate friendliness, beauty, and yes, even fire safety.
[...]
no new wood building yet has surpassed the world's tallest, built in the 18th century. The Kizhi Pogost is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located on an island in northern Russia, and has a central cupola 37 meters high (121 feet), a few meters above the tops of the new wood high-rises. But it likely won't hold onto the title of tallest wood building for long.

One all-wood building in northern Norway will be 17 stories high (52 meters), and there's also talk of a more theoretical 34-story wooden skyscraper in Sweden.
[...]
A lot of wood's appeal is counter-intuitive. It's not a bigger fire risk--in fact, thick wood planks stay strong in a fire, forming a protective char that keeps the integrity of the material intact. Steel can lose its strength when it burns, becoming "like spaghetti," according to B.J. Yeh of the Engineered Wood Association.

This new interest in wood is driven in part by the rise of cross-laminated timber (CLT), essentially a highly advanced form of plywood that can rival steel in strength. It works, basically, by gluing and pressing small beams together into giant boards that can be up to six inches thick, and are custom-sized for their part of a construction project.

Related Stories

Oregon City Approves Permit for US' First All-Wood High-Rise 74 comments

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


Original Submission

Tallest Timber Tower Tipped for Tokyo 33 comments

TreeHugger reports:

Sumitomo Forestry, an industry giant in Japan, [is] pivoting to plyscrapers and proposing a 70-story, 350 meter (1148') tower for the Marunouchi district in Tokyo. It's called W350, the plan being that it will be finished in 2041, the 350th anniversary of the founding of the company.

[...] Using a hybrid 9:1 ratio of wood to steel, Sumitomo Forestry aims to replace concrete, which is one of the world's largest carbon footprint contributors. The skyscraper would be a 70-floor mixed-use building that would include a hotel, office space, commercial space, and residences. Wrap-around balconies at different intervals would be planted with lush wildlife. And greenery would extend throughout the entire complex, creating a vertical forest where humans and wildlife can flourish.

[...] It is a brace tube structure, "a structural system that forms a cylindrical shell (brace tube) with columns / beams and braces. By placing braces diagonally in a set of shafts assembled with columns and beams, it prevents the building from deforming against lateral forces such as earthquakes and wind."

The images are beautiful.

Previously: Super Wood Could Replace Steel
The Case for Wooden Skyscrapers
Can You Build A Safe, Sustainable Skyscraper Out Of Wood?


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:28PM

    by hoochiecoochieman (4158) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:28PM (#57540)

    Why build skyscrapers at all? Skyscrapers are energy-hogs, make the streets dark and gloomy and pack too many people in small areas, causing traffic nightmares.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:42PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:42PM (#57548)

      Because you can fit more people into a smaller space, and because cities which epitomize urban sprawl such as Atlanta aren't exactly wonderful places to live either. People move about in NYC on subways a lot more efficiently, with less energy and probably better speed, than people stuck in traffic on Atlanta's freeways.

      • (Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday June 20 2014, @04:08AM

        by TheLink (332) on Friday June 20 2014, @04:08AM (#57787) Journal
        Well designed cities can actually be a more efficient use of land and resources.

        For our current population, if humans spread out more, we may actually damage more of the environment than if we concentrate ourselves in cities.
        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 20 2014, @02:22PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday June 20 2014, @02:22PM (#57987)

          Exactly, however the important phrase here is "can actually be". Right now, they really aren't. The big problem is the enormous cost of living in cities, which drives people out into the suburbs and exurbs. No one ever seems to have a solution to that problem, in fact they won't even acknowledge that it is a problem.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 21 2014, @03:43PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 21 2014, @03:43PM (#58431)
            Imagine moving everyone out of cities and putting them in lower density areas. How much more land will be used up? How much more wildlife would be displaced?

            They are currently more efficient than the "no cities" option, there's just a lot more room for improvement.
            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday June 22 2014, @05:38PM

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Sunday June 22 2014, @05:38PM (#58750)

              Suburbs/exurbs already use up a shitload of land, usually the best-quality land too (except for shitholes like Vegas and Phoenix, usually people want to live in places where the climate is nice; these also happen to be great places for growing food, so the two demands frequently oppose each other). Many American "cities" only barely qualify for the term, or simply don't, if you mean "high-density urban center".

              Obviously, everyone in the country spreading out so there's equal distance between every household would be a ridiculously inefficient use of land, and would displace a lot of wildlife (except deer, they seem to do just fine wandering through peoples' backyards, and in fact thrive on living around people despite how many of them die in traffic by doing so). But we could probably have a lot more greenspaces near development if people lived in a more dense fashion, and if we had better public transit systems to go with it, we'd spend less time commuting around, and we'd probably be healthier too (go to Manhattan: you don't see many severely obese people there). But the problem with such dense living always seems to be the cost-of-living: in dense downtown areas, rent (or condo prices) is astronomical, for a tiny, tiny amount of living area. (Or, you can get good prices in a ghetto, but who wants to dodge bullets?)

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by evilviper on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:53PM

      by evilviper (1760) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:53PM (#57553) Homepage Journal

      Skyscrapers have the advantage of efficient mass-transit... You don't drive your car up a ramp to get to the top floor. Nobody ever considers finding their own alternative methods of travel up/down a skyscraper because the elevator isn't fast enough. Ground-level mass transit has never managed to do the job as well.

      Maybe the elimination of fares with a single-payer system is a significant part of that. Light-rail would certainly get far more use if it was free, and perhaps cheaper if it could eliminate fare-collection related expenses. And the increased usage would promote further development of new lines, which would again promote additional usage. But something heavy like a train or bus can't accelerate to high speeds, then stop quickly, and resume, as an elevator can. Neither can they practically arrive at each stop as frequently as a large number of small (unmanned) elevators.

      When they develop a viable flatator, be sure to let me know.

      --
      Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:00PM (#57559)

        I read that last bit as "pliable vibrator", and about busted up laughing.

        I need to get more than two hours of sleep a night.

    • (Score: 2) by skullz on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:54PM

      by skullz (2532) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:54PM (#57555)

      Because that 3 hour commute to the suburbs is a killer and there are not enough apartments near by.

      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:26PM

        by edIII (791) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:26PM (#57571)

        Then why not take an idea I remember from Sim City 2000?

        Arcologies.

        Combine corporate, retail, light agriculture, aquaculture, and residential spaces into one building. Commutes would be a few minutes at best if you worked at a business in the building. Every residential space could have it's own ability to produce small amounts of food. Larger ones could be dedicated towards air purification. Aquaculture can be used for water reclamation possibly, but certainly would help support the light agriculture.

        Smaller schools for children within the building, and daycare for younger children.

        Basically that super large structure we saw in the latest Judge Dredd movie. Just without the skinning of human beings and psychotic bitches in the penthouse. Add some plants too.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 2) by skullz on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:34PM

          by skullz (2532) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:34PM (#57576)

          That's a good idea but I would prefer to work in the building or two over. Then I don't have to see those jerks when I'm at home relaxing.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by tribaal on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:37PM

          by tribaal (4333) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:37PM (#57578) Homepage

          Or the obvious (and more practical) counter-point:

          Why not let more people work form home, and stop having skyscrapers completely?

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by skullz on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:42PM

            by skullz (2532) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:42PM (#57582)

            Heresy!

            You know that the cattle are inherently untrustworthy and are just going to sit around eating Cheetos while at home, as opposed to sitting around eating Cheetos at work! Just because we have no idea what "work" and "productivity" actually are and can't measure it doesn't mean the unwashed masses can take advantage of us!

            Slave, come warm this chair!

          • (Score: 2) by snick on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:47PM

            by snick (1408) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:47PM (#57586)

            Why not let more people work form home, and stop having skyscrapers completely?

            That is a better answer ... there would still be a need for shared office space, but it could be hoteled and used when sharing is needed.

            The reason we don't do that is that it would require managers to actually manage their people, and we can't be expecting _them_ to do work.

        • (Score: 2) by snick on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:41PM

          by snick (1408) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:41PM (#57581)

          The problem with that is that folks don't necessarily want to move when they change jobs.

          It would be _way_ more efficient to keep all people in dormitories that are positioned between their assigned place of work and their assigned cemetery, but outside of a video game, that would never work.

        • (Score: 1) by meisterister on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:47PM

          by meisterister (949) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:47PM (#57585) Journal

          But then how do you make the building explode in an exact square when the nearby microwave power plant fails?

          --
          (May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
          • (Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Friday June 20 2014, @03:01AM

            by edIII (791) on Friday June 20 2014, @03:01AM (#57765)

            Ohhh, I would put the power plants in the bottoms of the arcologies. That way an explosion can not only go out to the sides, but *lift* up off the ground. A better show for the spectators.

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday June 19 2014, @11:45PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 19 2014, @11:45PM (#57679) Journal

          Arcologies.

          We call them "skyscrapers".

          The fundamental problem as I see it is that the cost of building a set volume of real estate is too high to support current arcology concepts. People simply aren't willing to pay enough of a premium to support the extra cost of more room. For example a three bed house in the US can in itself occupy up to 500 cubic meters or so. The quarter acre lot which the house rests on (a typical size in a suburb) is 1000 square meters of area. Given that almost no one really uses their land above about 10 meters, that's 10k cubic meters of usable volume that a typical suburban house has. I bet a 2 bedroom apartment could be squeezed into 300 cubic meters. So if say, you wanted to give a similar spatial experience to the typical US suburban home (let's treat it as a current day near ideal rather than a practical option for most of the world's population), you'd have to occupy the equivalent of around 30 tightly packed 2 bedroom apartments.

          Obviously, there are some economies of scale here such as public green or utility space (eg, parks and libraries) that help reduce that demand for space when you go to multiple residences, but I don't think it'll ever be enough on its own. You need a lot more space and until the cost of providing that goes way down or the premium that people would pay for it increases, it remains a big problem.

          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday June 20 2014, @03:05AM

            by edIII (791) on Friday June 20 2014, @03:05AM (#57766)

            That's a very good point. I was hoping that could be addressed with the light agriculture and plants providing private spaces akin to backyards. As for the other needs you stated I was hoping for suitable efficiency gains with modular spaces that you more or less reserved for use.

            It's not that simple though. It never is. *sigh*

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 1) by deimtee on Friday June 20 2014, @02:44AM

          by deimtee (3272) on Friday June 20 2014, @02:44AM (#57757) Journal

          You need some way to differentiate the various groups.
          The ruling class don't want to live in the same building as (and possibly be mistaken for) the middle class or the peasants.
          Not saying it couldn't be done, but you would need a stratified building, with internal access controls on the "public" spaces.
          Probably separate external access as well.

          --
          If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday June 20 2014, @03:13AM

            by edIII (791) on Friday June 20 2014, @03:13AM (#57770)

            Ahhhh, yes. I forgot the crucial element:

            People are bastards :)

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:13PM

      by Buck Feta (958) on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:13PM (#57596) Journal

      > Skyscrapers are energy-hogs

      Could you expound upon this idea? I would have guessed that they were more efficient than single family homes.

      --
      - fractious political commentary goes here -
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by evilviper on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:35PM

    by evilviper (1760) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:35PM (#57545) Homepage Journal

    Wood has some appealing properties few people know about. It's still the best material under extreme stresses. When you reach the breaking point of steel, it suddenly completely buckles and loses nearly all support characteristics. Concrete has similar problems, where exceeding it's limit will cause it to suddenly give-way entirely.

    Wood does not fail like either of those. Under excessive loads, wood will partially crush, losing a few inches, but still supporting the load at its new position. Just imagine any cases where a structure failed and injured people, and then consider how differently things would have gone if it only moved a short distance at a time, instead of suddenly giving-way entirely.

    The common spectacle of building implosions, couldn't happen the same way with wood supports. When the explosives sever the columns, each floor might drop to a reduced height, where the wood would dutifully keep holding it up. Of course it's possible to implode a wood structure too, but it requires considerably more effort.

    All that said... we should probably be doing research to merge the advantageous capabilities of all these materials, rather than accepting the disadvantages of any one of them. Concrete dates back to the Roman Empire; Steel from comets has been used for tools since the first blacksmith, and man-made steel "from as early as 300 BC"; wood is of course older still, predating humanity, and used from the start. It seems strange we're still dependent on these materials, with only very gradual improvements to their capabilities.

    --
    Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
    • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:37PM

      by evilviper (1760) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:37PM (#57546) Homepage Journal

      Oops. Substitute comets with "meteors".

      --
      Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
    • (Score: 2) by skullz on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:50PM

      by skullz (2532) on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:50PM (#57550)

      You could argue that your comet steel also predates humanity. The aliens used it to build their space ships to help us build the pyramids, after all.

      There was that story a while ago about using bamboo in place of carbon fiber as well which was interesting.

      The question on my mind would be how well would one of these mass wood buildings hold up in a storm or in an earthquake? I imagine it would do fine in a storm but would the less brittle wood withstand continued shaking better?

      Also, could we use this technology on a smaller scale than apartment buildings to generate modular homes with interlocking rooms? I would love to be able to hire a contractor to lay down a foundation and add a tower to my house for a few thousand. I could finally get that Mr. Evil observation deck I've always wanted for my death ray.

    • (Score: 1) by strattitarius on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:25PM

      by strattitarius (3191) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:25PM (#57570) Journal
      Every material has plastic and elastic deformation. They just have different points where it happens.

      " The common spectacle of building implosions, couldn't happen the same way with wood supports. When the explosives sever the columns, each floor might drop to a reduced height, where the wood would dutifully keep holding it up. Of course it's possible to implode a wood structure too, but it requires considerably more effort. "

      I fail to see how an exactly similar structure, one of wood and one of steel, would fair better when made of a material that is much easier to cut, crush, and burn*. I doubt that you can blow a hole in a 12x12 piece of wood and keep it supporting weight. Show me an example of a tree being blown up at the trunk and just falling a few feet...

      As far as burning, by the time the temp gets to where steel has melted, your wood has burnt and is now ash. Ash doesn't support more that molten steel. There is a reason you can'b build a structure out of entirely wood... gypsum, metal, concrete boards, or something has to be used to increase the fire rating.

      *those are not opinions, they are facts... even for this upgraded plywood.
      --
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      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by evilviper on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:22PM

        by evilviper (1760) on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:22PM (#57600) Homepage Journal

        material that is much easier to cut, crush, and burn*.

        Wood is decidedly harder to crush to complete failure than steel is to buckle or yield. To say otherwise and pretend this is "fact" you have to be restricting the comparison somehow, but which you haven't specified.

        Show me an example of a tree being blown up at the trunk and just falling a few feet...

        Trees are inverted pendulums, they naturally tip over easily. Steel and concrete in the same arrangement would do no better. If you connected 4 trees together, however, like building supports, then you'd see them holding up to incredible abuse.

        There's good reason mines are still being supported by timber, today.

        As far as burning, by the time the temp gets to where steel has melted, your wood has burnt and is now ash

        Steel doesn't need to "melt" for the structure to collapse. It weakens and sags at far lower temperatures, and suddenly fails catastrophically. Wood does not, instead having much more gradual failure.

        --
        Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by strattitarius on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:48PM

          by strattitarius (3191) on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:48PM (#57613) Journal
          Wood is decidedly harder to crush to complete failure than steel is to buckle or yield.

          And steel is decidedly harder to crush to complete failure than wood is to buckle or yield. You are comparing two completely different actions/reactions.

          It takes 5,000 to 15,000 PSI to crush wood (depending on type) and 50,000 to 100,000 PSI to crush steel (depeding on alloy and methods).

          I guess we can agree to disagree.
          --
          Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
          • (Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday June 20 2014, @04:15AM

            by TheLink (332) on Friday June 20 2014, @04:15AM (#57790) Journal
            Yeah so perhaps the massive redundancy and supposed safety of wood is partly due to there being 10 times more material when you use wood. A hole that's 10% width of a wooden beam would be 100% of a steel beam.
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 19 2014, @10:11PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 19 2014, @10:11PM (#57639) Journal

      The common spectacle of building implosions, couldn't happen the same way with wood supports. When the explosives sever the columns, each floor might drop to a reduced height, where the wood would dutifully keep holding it up. Of course it's possible to implode a wood structure too, but it requires considerably more effort.

      The not so common spectacle would still happen, because the blasting engineers know how to set their charges based on the building material involved. It would take them no time at all to take down a wood structure, they would just set their charges differently. The idea is to tip over the wooden structure onto it's side, or blow entire outside walls out.

      Wood is the strongest building material known to man in TENSILE STRENGTH per cross-section area. Unfortunately, we don't make as much use of tensile strength as we do compression, and sheer.

      A burning wood structure will give plenty of warning before it collapses. Snapping, popping, cracking beams. Firemen know these sounds mean they still have anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes before it goes, more time if they can get water on those beams. Steel truss systems and girders all tend to arrive at their elastic temperature at the same time, and the upper structure just falls straight down with zero warning.
       

      --
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19 2014, @06:56PM (#57556)

    Termites.

    Also bees, ants, beetles and fungi.

    • (Score: 2) by skullz on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:01PM

      by skullz (2532) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:01PM (#57561)

      You don't get bees, ants, beetles and fungi in a brick building? I'll have to tell them that. Apparently they didn't know.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19 2014, @10:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19 2014, @10:30PM (#57648)

        Things like carpenter bees, carpenter ants, wood-boring beetles and dryrot fungus all affect brick and concrete a whole lot less than wood.

    • (Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:03PM

      by Sir Garlon (1264) on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:03PM (#57562)

      Sure, wood has different problems than steel. Yet I have personally seen wooden buildings in Europe that are 500 years old, and read about wooden buildings (Norwegian churches) that are 1000 years old. I totally agree that insects are a risk, but clearly some buildings have been able to avoid that risk.

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by gawdonblue on Thursday June 19 2014, @09:29PM

      by gawdonblue (412) on Thursday June 19 2014, @09:29PM (#57630)

      I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:42PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday June 19 2014, @08:42PM (#57611) Homepage

    Can You Build A Safe, Sustainable Skyscraper Out Of Wood?

    Can I? Sure, why not, I'll give it a go. I'm gonna need... a saw.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk