Pirate's Cove

See, using concrete and steel is apparently worse for Hotcoldwetdry than killing off trees

Tall buildings out of timber? In the face of climate change, Seattle encourages it.

The loggers who made Seattle a center of the national timber industry are long gone. Only a few wooden landmarks of the timber heyday, mostly churches, still exist on the low-slung skyline of the city’s Ballard neighborhood.

But as concerns over climate change give new life to wooden building design, that could change.

Ballard will soon be home to Seattle’s first tall building built almost entirely from wood. Rising eight stories atop a florist shop will be a hotel built principally from cross-laminated timber (CLT) — durable panels made from binding layers of wooden planks with adhesive.

Cross-laminated timber is touted as an environmentally sustainable alternative to concrete and steel, which generate large quantities of greenhouse gases in their production. Loggers and environmentalists alike say that building with cross-laminated timber needs to be part of the response to climate change.

See, it’s all about Doing It Right

For those who remember the fiery 1990s protests over logging in the spotted owl’s Olympic Peninsula habitat, building with wood seems counterintuitive.

Mark Wishnie, director of global forestry at the Nature Conservancy, understands the whiplash that some feel about the environmental movement’s about-face on timber. One of the biggest challenges to increasing demand for CLT construction, he said, is the “scars in people’s memories” — the perception that logging equals deforestation. Cross-laminated timber makes sense, Wishnie said, only if the wood comes from a forest that’s managed responsibly.

So, enviroweenies, who are also usually Warmists, will have to make a decision: go after cutting down trees or support them over concrete

The huge environmental benefits of cross-laminated timber are its biggest draw: Construction on a cross-laminated timber high-rise emits roughly 25% less carbon dioxide than if the high-rise were concrete, according to a University of Washington study.

But, what of earthquakes? It’s not like Seattle is in a zone that could produce a devastating earthquake like seen in Indonesia in 2004

All three of the buildings proposed in Seattle are concrete-CLT hybrids, and it’s unlikely an entirely wood tower will come to Seattle any time soon. That’s because codes encourage that some of the building’s earthquake-proofing elements be made from concrete — even though in theory, cross-laminated timber should perform well in an earthquake, said Erica Spiritos, preconstruction manager for Swinerton Mass Timber in Portland.

Wood is considered as good as steel for flexibility during earthquakes, but, no one really knows if it will be that good went built more than a couple stories. Would you feel safe?

The cross-laminated timber panels will be prefabricated off-site, then lifted into place by a single crane in a matter of weeks, “like an Erector Set,” said architect Lauren Garkel, designer of two CLT projects. “The construction team is a handful of people with a drill.”

Hmm. So, it will be harvested by handsaw, travel to the prefabrication site by ox-cart, then to the construction site the same way, then raised by hand-winch? No fossil fuels involved, right?