Skyscrapers are often made with concrete, steel, and composites. All of the top 10 tallest structures in the world have that composition.
Meanwhile, wood is not really a common option as a construction material for high-rise buildings. The tallest that a wooden structure got is only 53 meters, which is found in Austria.
United States is marking itself in the wooden construction map as project^, a commercial real estate developer, plans to build the country’s first all-wood high-rise structure. The team behind this building has already secured its construction from the city official in Portland, Oregon.
Source: LEVER Architecture
Called Framework, the 11-storey building will be built using a technology known as cross-laminated timber or CLT. Panels of this kind are made of small wooden planks bound to one another by a polyurethane adhesive, which gives them the same strength as concrete and steel.
Moreover, the technology provides for lateral loads such as earthquakes. Researchers from Portland State University and Oregon State University have tested CLT in its structural integrity towards seismic loads.
Source: LEVER Architecture
D.R. Johnson Lumber Co., will make the CLT panels for the Framework high-rise. This is a Douglas Country logging company, which has a $150,000 investment coming from the state of Oregon so it could manufacture the CLT panels.
State officials look forward to the extensive use of CLT in future buildings with other investments in the technology.
Framework will be used for subsidized apartments care of Home Forward, and offices for Albina Community Bank and Beneficial State Bank.
According to the developer’s website, Framework was designed primarily to “develop a model for sustainable urban ecology by promoting social equity, environmental responsibility, and economic opportunity thus yielding broad advancement of these objectives at a national scale.”
Target start of construction will be in the fall of 2017 until the late 2018.
Sources: Framework | Digital Trends
