Melanie Sevcenko of The Guardian reports how wooden high rises are changing urban skylines as builders “ditch concrete.” Two urban building projects, one in New York City and the other in Portland, Oregon, will be constructed with the environmentally sustainable, cost-competitive building material of yesteryear, wood. It’s referred to as mass timber- large, solid pieces of panelized wood. Structures using mass timber are “flexible, strong, fire resistant and carbon-sequestering.” Mass timber could be “a viable alternative to concrete and steel for mid-to-high rise buildings.” The building project in Oregon will be constructed primarily from cross-laminated timber (CLT), the first of its kind in the U.S, and has been designed to exceed the state’s building codes for earthquakes. These two projects were nationally recognized last September when each was awarded $1.5 million from the USDA’s Tall Wood Building prize. The USDA is looking to these projects to lessen climate change and support rural jobs. Read More in The Guardian >
