How do we increase and optimize the uses of Mass Timber in the building industry? One approach is taller buildings, another is many, many mid-rise structures. Optimizing the amount of wood incorporated in new buildings – while following the best practices of managed forestry and whole-life-cycle analysis – reduces the impact of the high “carbon cost” of the embodied carbon in the energy-intensive standard building materials, steel and concrete, in new construction.
Yet concrete and steel have their own virtues in high-rise construction. A panel of experts will cap our lecture series The Short History and Promising Future of Tall Mass Timber Buildings with a discussion of Height & Hybrids. Our speakers include structural engineers and Mass Timber specialists Benton Johnson of SOM, Alejandro Fernandez of Thornton Tomasetti​, and Eric Karsh of EQUILIBRIUM who will be engaged in discussion with Daniel Safarik, Director of Research at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ​and co-author of the recent CTBUH Technical Guides​ on Tall Timber. Join us for a review of a decade of research on timber towers and a discussion of promising new directions and territories.
