Browsing: Mass Timber
Strong. Versatile. Resilient. Sustainable. These are just a few of the benefits mass timber construction offers—and part of the reason timber structures are taking the AEC world by storm. As demand for mass timber projects across the US continues to grow and evolve, designers, builders, and developers are constantly adjusting best practices.
Mass timber is having a moment in both large and small construction. But it’s not a new phenomenon. In fact, cross-laminated timber, or CLT, traces its origins to advances in wood processing and fabrication about 30 years ago in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
With a robust network of over 4,700 construction professionals, the STO Building Group is rich with experts spanning all facets of the construction industry. That means local project teams can readily access that companywide expertise and experience for the benefit of their clients and projects. Here, we highlight just a few of these experts and their areas of specialization.
Structure Tone New Jersey is diligently constructing L’Oréal’s new, state-of-the-art Research & Innovation (R&I) Center in Clark, NJ. With a $140 million development budget, this project marks the company’s most substantial investment in such a facility to date.
Mass timber is one of many strategies industry players can leverage to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
Blueprint Robotics, a Baltimore-based company that produces wood-frame construction products is planning to build a 450,000-square-foot production facility in Windsor, Connecticut, that is said to be the largest North American industrial building erected entirely of mass timber.
The wood product represents a “huge untapped potential” to drive down the city’s carbon footprint, said the New York City Economic Development Corp.
A Houston project plans to achieve two firsts: the city’s first mass timber commercial office project, and the state of Texas’s first commercial office building targeting net zero energy operational carbon upon completion next year. Framework at Block 10 is owned and managed by Hicks Ventures, a Houston-based development company.
The AEC industry is ever evolving. In the search for more sustainable solutions in construction, mass timber continues to take hold. As a central feature of a building’s aesthetic—and perhaps of the owner’s commitment to environmental stewardship—mass timber is notable and noticeable, and is actively challenging traditional building methods. Is it the next step in improving the built world?
The rise of mass timber usage on projects in the US Northeast is a trend that is here to stay due to the material’s ability to respond to the construction industry’s impact on climate change while satisfying designers’ appetite for biophilic building solutions. Like the specialized engineering expertise required to deliver custom wall systems, complex mass timber projects comprised of glulam, cross-laminated timber (CLT), etc. lend themselves to early-award, design-assist bid packages. We thought we would share some key lessons learned from our experience selecting a glulam partner early in the preconstruction phase.