Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 5 september 2018
New wood technology may offer hope for struggling timber

GILLIAN FLACCUS a 12-story wood building in
PHUONG LE the city's trendy Pearl Dis-
Associated Press trict. It would be the tall-
RIDDLE, Ore. (AP) — John est all-wood building in
Redfield watches with pride the world constructed in a
as his son moves a laser- seismic zone and the tallest
guided precision saw the all-wood building in North
size of a semi-truck wheel America.
into place over a massive An all-wood building in Nor-
panel of wood. way is taller, but is not in a
Redfield's fingers are seismic zone. An 18-story
scarred from a lifetime of wood building in British
cutting wood and now, Columbia is also taller, but
after decades of decline rests on a traditional con-
in the logging business, he crete core.
has new hope that his son, Lever Architecture is using
too, can make a career $1.5 million it won in a tall
shaping the timber felled in wood building competi-
southern Oregon's forests. tion sponsored by the U.S.
That's because Redfield In this Nov. 11, 2016 photo, John Redfield, chief operating officer of D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. in Department of Agriculture
Riddle, Ore., poses for a photo as he shows an example of a cross-laminated timber, or CLT, panel
and his son work at D.R. that underwent a flammability test. and the softwood industry
Johnson Lumber Co., one Associated Press that's intended to promote
of two U.S. timber mills mak- CLT as a domestic building
ing a new wood product tially 60 percent of our busi- small as 5 inches in diam- of Washington's School of material. A 10-story residen-
that's the buzz of the con- ness," said Redfield, D.R. eter at the top and those Environmental and Forest tial tower in New York City
struction industry. It's called Johnson's chief operating damaged by pests and Sciences. also got $1.5 million.
cross-laminated timber, officer. "We're seeing some wildfire are prime candi- SmartLam in Montana is the The Portland firm has been
or CLT, and it's made like major growth factors." dates. other company producing working with scientists at
it sounds: rafts of 2-by-4 From Maine to Arkansas to But challenges remain be- CLT panels. Portland State University
beams aligned in perpen- the Pacific Northwest, the fore CLT becomes as com- This spring, cross-laminated and Oregon State University
dicular layers, then glued material is sparking inter- mon in the United States as timber will get its ultimate to test the panels' strength
— or laminated — together est among architects, en- it is in Europe and Canada, test in the United States by subjecting them to
like a giant sandwich. gineers and researchers. and not all builders are when a Portland architec- hundreds of thousands of
The resulting panels are Many say it could infuse sold. tural firm breaks ground on pounds of pressure. q
lighter and less energy-in- struggling forest commu- U.S. building codes gen-
tensive than concrete and nities like Riddle with new erally place height limits
steel and much faster to as- economic growth while on all-wood buildings for
semble on-site than regular reducing the carbon foot- safety reasons, though a
timber, proponents say. print of urban construction special committee of the
Because the grain in each with a renewable building International Code Coun-
layer is at a right angle to material. cil is investigating potential
the one below and above Visually blemished wood changes to address the use
it, there's a counter-tension that currently goes to waste of CLT in such structures.
built into the panels that can be used in the middle And research is still under-
supporters say makes them layers of a CLT panel with- way on critical questions of
strong enough to build out sacrificing strength how these buildings with-
even the tallest skyscrap- or look. Supporters say it stand fire and earthquakes
ers. could bring sawmills back in high-seismic regions.
"We believe that two to five online while improving for- Building codes in Oregon
years out, down the road, est health through thinning allow cutting-edge designs
we could be seeing this dense stands and making using new technology like
grow from just 20 percent use of low-value wood and CLT in some cases, but only
of our business to poten- local tree species. Trees as after rigorous testing and
an intensive approval pro-
cess.
That can make such proj-
ects cost-prohibitive, said
Peter Dusicka, an engineer-
ing professor at Portland
State University who's been
researching the strength of
CLT panels.
"The early adopters are
looking at it and seeing it
as a good opportunity,"
but before CLT can take
off, there will have to be
more examples to get In this Nov. 15, 2016, photo, Lever Architecture founder Thomas
In this Nov. 11, 2016 photo, a logging crew harvests new timber people excited and more Robinson poses for photo in his company's all-wood headquar-
on private land near the headquarters of D.R. Johnson Lumber mills producing it, said ters building, built with cross-laminated timber, or CLT, in Port-
Co., in Riddle, Ore. Thomas DeLuca, professor land, Ore.
Associated Press and director of University Associated Press