The Case for Skyscrapers Made of Wood
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/des...comeback/1554/
Quote:
|
Nice idea,but can wood support the weight of a building in the same way steel does? After all, isn't that another reason why the latter became the predominant component for building skyscrapers?
|
As the posted article notes, wood has a poor resistance to fire, which led some cities to ban wood construction for taller structures, particularly in Chicago and New York where modern skyscrapers were developed. Since wood was banned as a structural material in these main skyscraper markets, the tools and strategies for designing skyscrapers with wood were never really developed.
Strength wise, wood fares fairly well. In compression, wood is actually about as strong as concrete, while being much lighter. Wood also compares favorably to steel, since although steel is much stronger, it's also quite heavier. Wood's light weight is an advantage in earthquake prone areas. Here's a chart of the strength to weight ratio(ksi/SG) for some varieties of wood and steel and concrete. http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/8039/woods.jpg Data from http://workshopcompanion.com/KnowHow...d_Strength.htm Other difficulties with designing with wood are that the strength changes with moisture content and direction of grain. For a lowrise structures, it's ok to overcome these uncertainties with deliberate overbuilding, but for a skyscraper, it's necessary to have a more consistent material. |
:previous: Well then, this may be the time for Vancouver to actually be another innovator city in the development of the skyscraper. North America has enough land to develop tree farms to grow the species that will be needed to build many of these "woodscrapers". :notacrook:
|
Quote:
Heavy timber actually has self insulating properties. If you've ever chopped through a thick log that's been burning in a fireplace, you'll find the core unburned. Usually heavy timber exposed in building fires can maintain its strength and unlike steel, not warp and bend from heat that would cause stress on the rest of the structure. Basic fireinsulating solution is the same. Encase the columns in several layers of sheetrock. If there's ever is a fire, replacement of members is fairly easy. It's resilient construction to damage. Where you hear all the bad stories is when a house or apartment built out of 2x4's and 2x10's burns to a crisp....obviously because the stud-wall construction has thinner members, and more edges to catch fire. Some of the drawbacks to wood construction will be flooding, pests, and mold. I realize there's tons of treated wood products out there that claim to defeat all of these problems, but I question the longevity of resistance, and I still have not done enough research on their health effects. Basically, I don't know what kind of treated wood is required for high-rise construction versus a low rise...which we know has little or no EQ issues. Basically, I'm only convinced on engineering and life safety part of it which are the biggest hurdles to win over skeptics. I'm happy with the sustainability aspect too. |
And what happens if the big bad wolf shows up? Wooden skyscrapers would be more than likely be susceptible to hurricanes and stuff.
|
Quote:
In japan they have what one might call proto-skyscrapers. Their called pagoda towers and while I will admit their not that tall. They have more in common with modern skyscrapers than your typical wooden structure in that they are both earthquake resistant (some actually have tuned mass dampers) and hurricane resistant ( Japan gets hit with bigger hurricanes than we do e.g. typhoon tip). As Hayward said the main issue is fire-proofing. Several pagoda's of antiquity have been destroyed by fire. http://www.jappleng.com/articles/vie...da-and-history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Horyu-ji09s3200.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-ji09s3200.jpg |
Actually wooden skyscrapers could probably take place in developing or undeveloped countries. Since these nations have a lower GDP they can afford to construct a wooden skyscraper. Wood would serve as a fine gap between traditional houses and steel skyscrapers.
|
Quote:
And tornado areas...don't even think of it. Even Steel buildings don't fare well. Maybe someday reinforced concrete will become more sustainable. There's GFRC, but it's usually limited to decorative elements and cladding. |
And then there's termites and other unwanted guests.
|
So do you guys think these buildings would be best built in higher elevations?
|
Termites, fire-prone, highly work-intensive maintenance-wise.
Just three examples why "highrise" wood structures should not be considered. Interesting exercise, tho. But with future hybridization in genetics and farming, who knoww what they will come up with. I think some sort of plastic structure is much more likely than wood. I didn't even realize until a few years ago that the "periodic table" of elements has increased so much siince I was in school, so who knows what new element/material will be created in the future. Plas-steel, a combo of concrete/steel/plastic? All I know is we'll all be pleasantly surprised... |
Still haven't seen anybody talk about how they plan to address the fire issue. Tall wood buildings certainly are not allowed by building codes here.
Somebody mentioned large timbers, fireproofing, etc. But if you do all of that, you lose the weight and cost advantage, which was the whole point in the first place. We do a fair bit of timber construction here (in the mountains), but it's not cheap. Not the same thing as wood construction at all. |
It's very cool, but I'd personally never want to live or work in a wooden skyscraper. Also, one, by itself, might have minimal fire hazard, but a "forest" of them - that would be truly terrifying.
|
Steel and concrete would still be in the infrastructure, and wood will probably be just the cladding (and that's still unfeasible). I also see glass on the building render in Vancouver.
|
Heavy timber isn't all that much more dangerous than steel, which will deflect and fail when exposed to fire. Of course, our solution is to fireproof steel. It's done the same for wood. If code permits highrise woodframe construction, you'll usually encase members in several layers of sheetrock. You can usually achieve some pretty high fire ratings by building up around the columns. If heavy timber is used, the outside surface of the wood will form a protective char and maintain quite a bit of strength and rigidity, even after the fire is extinguished. Of course that is worst case scenario. Usually the sprinkler system will knock out the fire before things get worse.
Again, my fear IS the exposure to water. Like any material it's a problem but with wood you have more problems besides weakening strength, like mold, insects, and chemicals. I imagine the entire building envelope is glass with aluminum framing with some wood planks projected over the glass for aesthetic reasons. If code allows, you can pour concrete over a wood structure. It's done all the time here in Chicago to boost fire ratings. They'll go into old wood frame factory buildings and just start pouring over the old floor to level things out a bit and provide some extra protection. |
Interestingly in Germany on Grosser Feldberg, a mountain in Hesse, there is since 1950 a high-rise like telecommunication tower whose upper section consist of wood, without metallic parts! See http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?buildingID=41551 .
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ransmitter.JPG |
Interesting idea, but as a Floridian it freaks me out. We stopped using wood for structural purposes a while ago. I understand that wood can be treated, but I wonder if you lose some of the benefits from that.
nom nom nom nom nom http://chesspestcontrol.com/images/p...mites_map1.jpg src: http://www.pest-control-pittsburgh.i...trol-termites/ |
Wood That Reaches New Heights
By HENRY FOUNTAIN Published: June 4, 2012 LONDON — Among the many apartment buildings in the London borough of Hackney, the nine-story structure on the corner of Provost Street and Murray Grove stands out, its exterior a mix of white and gray tiles rather than the usual brick. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...icleInline.jpg William Pryce WITH THE GRAIN, AGAINST THE GRAIN At the nine-story Graphite Apartments in London, structural elements involve many layers of spruce fused together. But it’s what’s underneath this cladding that makes the 29-unit building truly different. From the second floor up, it is constructed entirely of wood, making it one of the tallest wooden residential buildings in the world. It was built three years ago using laminated spruce panels, up to half a foot thick and 30 feet long, that were fabricated to precise specifications in Austria, shipped across the English Channel and bolted together on site to form the exterior and interior walls, floors and roof. Even the stairwells and elevator shafts are made from these solid panels, called cross-laminated timber, which resemble supersize plywood. Developed in Europe in the 1990s, cross-laminated timber, or CLT, is among the latest in a long line of “engineered” wood products that are strong and rigid enough to replace steel and concrete as structural elements in bigger buildings. Already popular in Europe, CLT is only beginning to catch on in North America, where proponents say buildings made with the panels could be a cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative to structures made with those other materials. ... Codes in Britain allow more flexibility, said Anthony Thistleton, partner in the London architectural firm of Waugh Thistleton, which designed the Hackney building, formerly called Stadthaus and now known as the Graphite Apartments. “It’s perhaps the only place that we could have broken this ‘timber ceiling,’ ” he said. Waugh Thistleton has designed a second CLT structure, a four-story commercial and residential building, now under construction nearby, and an eight-story apartment block is within walking distance, making Hackney a hotbed of cross-laminated timber design. Last month, construction began on a 10-story CLT apartment tower in Melbourne, Australia. Some proponents think buildings made from the panels could be even taller. “In the U.K., I’m convinced that it will hit 12, 13, 14, maybe 15 within a couple of years,” said Craig Liddell, formerly commercial director with the British division of KLH, the Austrian company that made the panels for the Graphite Apartments. Others say that hybrid structures, perhaps with timber panels built around a concrete core, could reach 30 stories. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/sc...pagewanted=all |
24-storey Wooden Tower in Vienna
Read More: http://www.holzbauaustria.at/index.p...ce447217048c90 Quote:
http://www.holzbauaustria.at/typo3te...0e241a45d3.jpg http://www.holzbauaustria.at/typo3te...c10288c3be.jpg http://www.holzbauaustria.at/typo3te...2b2a53be51.jpg |
Five floors is the maximum allowed for wood buildings by code in most jurisdictions in the United States.
Los Angeles recently started allowing seven floors. Here's the result: http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ap_lo...8_16x9_992.jpg http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/ Those flames are several hundred feet tall. :hell: It was a long horizontal building, 7 stories of wood, like a skyscraper on it's side, and the fire spread horizontally. Imagine if it were as tall as it was wide, the flames would have been over a thousand feet tall. Built with all the modern fireproofing materials and requirements. This building wasn't fully built, but was up to the full height, so luckily not open yet and no occupants were killed. They can add as much fire prevention as they want to wood, and it might actually prevent some small fires from turning into big fires, but once the fire starts and takes hold of a tall wood structure, all bets are off. Your fireproofing better be solid rock. http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/k...4_1280x720.jpg http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/ Also, most of the tall wood buildings in Los Angeles are extremely ugly. Developers who skimp on materials usually don't hire quality architects. If downtown LA gets hit with a 6 magnitude earthquake, you can expect to see several of these burning at the same time, probably with people in them, and no water to fight it because the water mains will most likely break in the quake. 110 buildings burned down in the Northridge quake fire. |
A wooden 7-storey lowrise office building in Prince George, British Columbia, meant to showcase what can be done with BC's forestry exports, was built last year. Currently the building code in BC allows for six floor residential buildings that have a concrete podium. This came about in 2009 when the height was relaxed from a maximum of four floors.
http://www.biv.com/article/2013/3/wo...ce-george-con/ |
Quote:
|
|
|
Quote:
Even-taller wood buildings use a very different material. Cross-laminated timber is a heavy-frame ("massive timber") material, akin to the giant logs that wooden lofts use but made from smaller bits of wood. |
Quote:
|
I would never live in a high-rise made of wood, no matter how safe you try to convince me it is.
|
World’s tallest wood building proposed in Paris could store 3,700 metric tons of carbon
Read More: http://inhabitat.com/worlds-tallest-...aris-by-mga-2/ Quote:
http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-conte...is-by-MGA-.jpg |
Though the idea of a wooden sky scrapper seems interesting, I would not prefer to live in one. Wood as a material is very combustible,prone to mold
growth and termite attack. And in a hurricane/tornado prone area they take the most damage. When a tornado strikes wooden buildings cease to exist. The disadvantages far outweigh the advantages for a wooden structure. Increase in the rate of deforestation is another thing. Besides concrete structures have proved to be comparatively stronger and safer. One feels secure living in concrete buildings. |
Quote:
have the time to escape. |
A Spectacular $350-Million Wood Pagoda Design By Herzog & de Meuron Unveiled for New Vancouver Art Gallery:
http://mashumashu.com/vancouver-art-gallery/ http://mashumashu.com/wp-content/uploads/VAG-Design.jpg |
Big advances in superstrong glued wood will enable lower cost 80+ story wooden skyscrapers
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09...lued-wood.html |
A interesting Slate article ...
Think Concrete Is Stronger Than Timber? This London Pavilion Wants to Prove You Wrong. |
Just a footnote to that article, tulipwood is also called yellow poplar in the US.
|
Quote:
If you can save a forest, and all the creatures that become extinct, who have lost their homes, and stop the clear-cutting which draws scavengers like deer and increases the risk of forest fires, then use some other material to build. I also read that tree farms only have 3 life cycles and kaput! Then what? It's no surprise that lumber companies are among the most powerful lobbyists on a state, country, federal level, insisting everything be built out of wood, and lying about how much more expensive it is to build with concrete. In Mexico, the concrete firm, CEMEX, is on a par with our lumber companies, except they insist everything be built with concrete. I had a house designed for me in Baja and tell me about it! Even a concrete roof, for a rooftop patio, and would I ever fear a brush fire consuming my all-concrete structure? All my travels through both Mexico and Central America I noticed just about everything built with concrete, houses, apartment buildings, motels, etc. It's a crying shame that wood construction is foreign to the Mexicans, and when they come here, they trade in their masonry talents for wood construction, and a missed opportunity to employ them to build more durable structures in this country. I am so, so, so fearful of fire, it's ridiculous! At least my townhouse has cinder block walls going up the entire 2 floors, and when I unit burnt out in my neighborhood, the unit burnt out, it didn't effect any neighbors. I'm gearing up to move to Tucson to retire, and I already have my eyes set on one of those many 1960's/1970's slump brick or cinder block one story patio townhouses, only the roof is built with wood. I would never consider living in an all wooden structure, even if the rent was free! And these developers have the nerve to slap the word Luxury on to the building! Fireproof = luxury to me! I get saddened everytime there's an apartment fire in this city, and tenants are forced to evacuate in the middle of the night, all which could be preventable with concrete construction, concrete walls separating the units. What's really a frightening idea is if there's ever widespread anarchy in this country, one day, on a windy night, think of what all could burn down in just one night! Here, in Las Vegas, with many houses built a mere 10 feet apart, and with our wind blasters that come through here at 50-60MPH, imagine!!! All it would take is one Molotov cocktail hurled into someone's living room window to get it all started! Ah Well! Enough ranting about the widespread Weyer-haus-ing in this country! |
'Glue' that makes plant cell walls strong could hold the key to wooden skyscrapers
Read More: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-cell-wa...ey-wooden.html Quote:
|
Paris is getting a 'White Forest' wooden tower that will feature 2,000 plants — take a look
http://www.businessinsider.com/green...uction-2017-10 Quote:
http://static5.businessinsider.com/i...hitectes07.jpg |
Quote:
|
A similar fire to that LA one happened a couple years back in Houstons Montrose neighborhood to a mid rise apartment building made out of wood.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4541/...2af01188_z.jpgaxis-fire-long http://swamplot.com/she-didnt-start-...it/2014-03-27/ https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4586/...e73b0461_z.jpg032514___media_10 http://swamplot.com/she-didnt-start-...it/2014-03-27/ |
https://archpaper.com/2018/01/interv...r-tower-audit/
Quote:
The proposed Perkins + Will-designed River Beech Tower, if built, would be the tallest wood structure at 80 stories. Currently in a conceptual phase, the design calls for the use of easily available commercial wood products. (Courtesy Perkins + Will) https://42mzqz26jebqf6rd034t5pef-wpe...ge-645x542.jpg The interior of the central atriums would feature bridges that link the tower’s two hemispheres. (Courtesy Perkins + Will) https://42mzqz26jebqf6rd034t5pef-wpe...or-645x829.jpg |
Plyscraper city: Tokyo to build 350m tower made of wood
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...ower-wood-w350 Quote:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/375/cp...6409295443.jpg |
moving forward on the largest mass timber building in the usa -- in cleveland's ohio city neighborhood market square:
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/...st-side-market https://expo.advance.net/img/33b4c35...t115441pm.jpeg |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
There is a proposal (using that loosely) for a 62-story complex in Philadelphia called Timber Towers.
PhillyVoice PhillyVoice PhillyVoice The site is rumored to be the location of Comcast's third Center City highrise. |
Timber Towers 62-story looks just great
|
Quote:
|
Cleveland's Landmarks Commission clears the way for Market Square Development project in Ohio City to move forward
Design plans include 253 apartments and 550 parking spaces Posted: 8:01 AM, Apr 26, 2019 Updated: 6:53 PM, Apr 26, 2019 By: John Kosich CLEVELAND — The possibility that the Market Plaza, a late 80s strip shopping center across the street from the West Side Market was facing the wrecking ball, was not the concern of the City's Landmarks Commission Thursday, but a sense of relief. Their focus was what would become the new neighbor of the iconic Market, the transformational mixed-use, Market Square Development. The commission approved the design plans for the complex that will include a 7-story apartment building featuring 253 apartments and a 10-story office building that Dan Whalen with Harbor Bay Real Estate of Chicago promises will be unique. "We're doing timber construction which hasn't been done in this state before, to this level and this scale that we're talking about," said Whalen a native of Willoughby. "So we're going to have the tallest mass timber building in the United States when its all said and done." Currently, the tallest is an 8-story building in Portland but both will soon be eclipsed by larger projects in the pipeline across the country as developers eye the use of wood which when engineered is on a par with steel and concrete. more: https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/...o-move-forward |
Quote:
|
All times are GMT. The time now is 10:55 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.