Why Mass Timber?
Opportunity to Change the Landscape
Integrated Project Delivery
The opportunity to unlock the benefits offered by mass timber is offered through an integrated project team with proven experience with the material. This includes a developer, architect, structural engineer, builder, mass timber fabricator and others, who are aligned in their decision making throughout the design, cost analysis process, project coordination and erection process. The results are measurable and meaningful as compared to projects comprised of traditional materials and methods.
Embodied Carbon
Mass Timber offers a tool to replace the more fossil fuel-intensive presence of concrete and steel with a natural material that reduces both the embodied energy and carbon within buildings. Developed in Austria in the early 1990s, mass timber consists of small sections of wood that are laminated to create larger structural sections such as beams (glulam), panels (cross-laminated timber, or CLT) and other innovative pieces.
Construction Speed & Efficiency
Well-designed mass timber buildings delivered by integrated project teams with proven experience have the ability to increase the speed of construction by up to 30%. This means that more aesthetic, healthier structures are delivered faster with cost savings coming through material pricing, reduced construction financing, lower build-out costs and greater near-term revenue realization.
Whole Building Life Cycle Analysis
Measuring the true environmental impact of the buildings we construct does not start with material procurement. Our whole building life cycle analysis and resulting strategic partnerships consider the sourcing methods, transportation impacts and manufacturing practices up and down the supply chain to ensure we are building responsibly with all environmental impacts in mind.
Biophilia
Scientific research suggests that humans inherently seek deep connections with nature and other forms of life. There is a proven health benefit to “the rich, natural pleasure that comes from being surrounded by living organisms” within the built environment. Mass timber bridges the gap between this deep seeded human desire and the buildings in which we live, work and spend much of our time.
International Building Code Update
Resulting from rigorous scientific research and testing, the International Code Council (ICC) announced in early 2019 new code provisions to allow for tall mass timber buildings with a maximum height of 18 stories. This innovative advancement in the building code certifies that mass timber satisfies “robust performance standards” ensuring that the building and construction industry now has a “strong, low-carbon alternative to traditional tall building materials.”
Healthier Forests & Supporting Rural Communities
Mass timber can be fabricated from small-diameter trees providing the ability to promote forest health through the purposed thinning of overgrown forests and the removal of trees afflicted by insects and disease. This creates a market-based incentive for rural job creation in sawmills, logging operations and forest fire prevention.
—Case Study
Tall With Timber
A Seattle Mass Timber Tower Case Study
Seattle, WA
November 2018
Development
TimberRise (via Heartland)
General Contractor
Swinerton
Architect
DLR Group
Landscape Design
Martha Schwartz Partners
The “Tall With Timber” case study is the result of a collaboration by a team of architects, engineers, landscape designers, contractors, developers and industry experts who came together to imagine the best possible path and solution for the design of a taller mass timber mixed-use building.
The team established design parameters and requirements, with the goal of underwriting the cost comparison between mass timber (design case) and cast-in-place post-tension concrete (baseline) as structural framing systems for a 12-story, mixed-use building in Seattle, WA. The team worked to maximize the design potential, with a keen focus on system design, structural cost, and constructability. Consideration was also given to environmental performance and compliance with life safety requirements.
The team based the design parameters and constraints on real-life assumptions relative to the local jurisdiction and site, environmental, economic and socio-cultural criteria. The results of the case study was promising in that the mass timber solution produced a 1/2 percent construction cost savings as compared to the baseline post-tension concrete system. “For our team, the best takeaway is the realization that quality, cost and time are no longer necessarily exclusive tangibles but an inclusive part of a new value proposition and business model” for mass timber development.
—Case Study
First Tech Federal Credit Union
Hillsboro, OR
Completed 2018
The work of our industry colleagues who create noteworthy mass timber buildings is always worth celebrating. The teams from Hacker (architect), Swinerton (contractor) and others set a high bar at the First Tech Federal Credit Union Headquarters for creating a work place of natural health, warmth and sustainability. Across five-stories and 156,725 square feet of office, the project delivered on the compelling qualities presented by mass timber, including financially outperforming traditional building methodologies and creating a space that reflects the values of its occupants.
—Case Study
Vaagen Timbers
Colville, WA
Established 2018
Founder & CEO Russ Vaagen
In 1952, Vaagen Brothers Lumber was founded in Colville, Washington. From its inception, the operation has remained a family company and has grown to become an industry leader with an innovative focus on small diameter logs. Located just miles from the Idaho Panhandle and near the Washington border with British Columbia, the area is significantly drier than the remainder of the state due to the rain shadow of the Cascade Range. The lower precipitation causes forests in the region to grow slower than forests located further west, but with the advantage of having a tighter and cleaner grain within the wood fiber. Incredibly, more than half of the logs that enter the mill are less than 7 inches in diameter! The second advantage is that smaller logs can be harvested from both public and private forests as part of healthy forest management practices to reduce the likelihood of forest fire and disease.
Third generation Vaagen family member, Russ Vaagen, decided in 2017 to expand the footprint of the operation. He founded a separate entity, Vaagen Timbers, to manufacture glulam beams and cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels sourcing Vaagen Brothers lumber. Their state-of-the-art facility can produce multiple sizes of straight glulam beams up to 60 ft. long and CLT panels up to 12 in. thick, 4 ft. wide, and 60 ft. long. A key piece of the vision is for, “Vaagen Bros. and Vaagen Timbers to tell the small log story from the forest to better buildings.” Vaagen Timbers has supplied mass timber structural materials for commercial development projects ranging from major public educational facilities to townhome projects across the western U.S.