Timber Skyscrapers Innovations in Wood Architecture & Design

good afternoon welcome

um to this uh fairly unique and

interesting opportunity here we have

where we're

um we've got

a talk about architecture in the school

of Forestry Environmental Studies and

this may be a first I'm not sure

um

but we've had the great pleasure to have

with us today

two architects who are leading the

initiative to build tall buildings with

wood and Structural Materials Michael

Green who is from MGA Michael Green

Architects is a for him he's just

started he

left his old firm about a couple weeks

ago and it's just started a new firm

he's in Vancouver Canada

and he's put out a document called the

case for tall wood building which I'm

sure you'll hear more about during his

talk which is really got the airwaves

fluttering about what things we can and

cannot do with wood

and uh

our other guest is Andrew wah from wa

thistleton Architects from London

he he and Michael and I met in Bangalore

India at the FAO conference on the joy

of wood and when I heard the kind of

work they were doing I immediately

invited them to come here to Yale

um so I don't think I need to say much

more in the line of introduction welcome

we're very glad to have you and look

forward to your talk

am I ready yeah we have to use these

guys so we're going to uh we're gonna

tag team this this uh presentation but

it's a huge pleasure to be here

um we've had a really fun day already

and uh for me it's really special

because I spent eight years living here

in New Haven almost nine years so it's

pretty great to be back I've been in

Vancouver for the last 14.

um so it's pretty nice Andrew and I end

up lecturing a lot together around the

world because we're in this unique

conversation we're having and so um that

we're going to talk about tonight but

it's great fun because we get to come

together Andrew's practice in London

um we get to come together and sort of

share our current work and the issues

we're looking at and learn and grow from

each other so this is a pleasure just to

be able to get to do this together again

it's been since I guess when we were

India with Mary since we last did it so

um we're going to tag Andrew's going to

start and um

we're kind of we're working I feel like

I should break into songs I know it

feels funny but microphones so if I do

then please um

actually you know you know one question

just just for because it is interesting

as Architects for us to be here is

anybody in the room an architect who who

are we looking at one two three four

okay and everybody else forestry or

general public or forestry hands

landscape architecture excellent

um

building official oh

excellent how about engineers anybody

engineer

yeah good good okay

it's a crowd great

do we just do we flick this forward yeah

okay

okay so what we're going to talk about

this evening is is the principle the

idea that wood is a word as a viable

alternative to concrete and steel so the

work that Michael and I are doing is not

it's not principally looking at at

Timber at word as a as an aesthetic

material but Timber and wood uh the idea

of it being an alternative or the

principle that it can be and should be

seen as an alternative to concrete and

steel

so why would

this is where we start from this is

where the essential

kind of the Crux of the problem comes

from seven billion people which is the

big news at Christmas so when we were

born and weirdly within a couple of

weeks of each other

um and you have to guess who's the

oldest but we can leave that to this is

the uh

there were three and a half billion

people on the planet so this is a this

is a this is our problem this is our

Generations problem this is for us to

deal with that's three billion people

need a home by 2035 a hundred thousand

homes a day so this is this is for our

profession for our Industries this is

the this is the problem of our lifetime

of these 70 will be Urban by 2050. if we

have an understanding of the fact that

to house all these people in order to be

able to live in societies which can

function adequately we need to densify

our cities so we're looking at and

understanding uh dense Urban contexts in

order to be able to to house these

populations

and how we do this because the building

industry itself as we stand is

responsible for 40 of the consumption of

world's resources

and here what I've done actually rather

than saying 25 self which is giving you

a range because I don't know you know

when any of us research these things you

can go to the concrete lobbying

organization and they will say one

figure and you go to Greenpeace and you

get it right on the other end of the

spectrum and people are quoting these

all over the place so what I've what

we've done here is to is to use some

figures with within ranges of uh of

these uh kind of quotes So for this one

here 25 to 40 of the consumption of

energy

um on the planet is from the

construction industry from the building

industry itself 30 to 40 of the emission

of greenhouse gases is from construction

and 30 to 40 percent of solid waste

generation

now as we stand

the building industry itself principally

uses concrete and steel for these

buildings

concrete itself is responsible for

between five and eight percent of global

greenhouse gas emissions so that makes

it the fourth single biggest emitter of

greenhouse gases

steel for four percent so per volume in

terms of in terms of the construction

industry the the biggest emitter of

greenhouse gases now this is compared

importantly to airline travel 1.6

shipping three percent and again

concrete five percent so if you build in

Timber you can fly where you like

so now we're going to switch over and

um I guess you know this really is the

essence of how both of us came to this

discussion

um I come from BC where it's obviously a

Big Timber industry so it's an important

discussion in my community but my

interest as an architect and Andrew's

interest certainly is around the issue

of climate change around the issue of

environmental footprint of the buildings

we build and looking for a new

responsible way so much like Andrew

suggested is that the fact that the

world is urbanizing at this

extraordinary rate means that we need to

not look at solutions that are rural or

Suburban scale which much of the

architecture industry has been looking

at for a long time of Greener Solutions

we really need to look at the big

buildings we make and again the bones of

those big buildings is really where we

found we need to start from Square One

so effectively in all those statistics

and and to go one step further on the

stats that that Andrew just talked about

here in in the United States it's almost

50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions

are related to the building industry and

almost 50 percent of energy is related

to the making of manufacture and

operating in buildings so those those

numbers are actually slightly skewed

down worldwide as they are here in North

America they're even more extraordinary

so obviously to us the reality is the

big problems equals big opportunities

equals big Solutions and that's really

why we've sort of stepped into The Fray

of very very large kind of systemic

change discussions about how we build in

urban buildings

um

largely all of us are thinking Greener

Today and I I always love to use this

quote I'd put my money on solar energy I

hope we don't have to wait for oil and

coal to run out before we tackle it and

the great thing about that quote is

Thomas Edison said it to Harvey

Firestone and Henry Ford and he said it

80 years ago and the thing I like to

point out is that of course as we are

all working hard to now build Greener

buildings and add photovoltaics to our

buildings and other Green Building

Systems the reality in what we do

ultimately is that the only building

material that we really build with in

large quantities anyway that is

fundamentally grown by the sun is is of

course wood which becomes a very easy

moniker for why we want to do this but

ultimately isn't the issue that when we

put all this energy all of this process

into the basic building materials of

Steel and concrete really ultimately

we're trying to compete with

photosynthesis and we don't have a

prayer keeping up with it so

fundamentally we need to look to

solutions that take that advantage and

what's and some of you certainly a

Forester industry know this uh the

forestry school know this statistic but

that fundamentally unlike concrete that

five to eight percent emitter of

greenhouse gas

and steel wood on the other hand has

that great capacity to not only use less

energy to be

turned into from a tree into Lumber but

also has the ability to sequester your

carbon at the rate of roughly one cubic

meter so storing one ton of carbon

dioxide so not only are we not putting

it into the system with our structural

system we're looking at how we can

ultimately store it and change the old

dynamics of buildings so obviously wood

is a renewable resource and that ability

to sequester carbon are the two critical

components that really begins our

conversation tonight

the other big starting point is really

to say that when you look at a map like

this as cione fao's net change in Forest

Area

and when you look at it what we have to

recognize is these ideas as important as

they are they also can be detrimental if

they're not managed in an appropriate

way so if we don't Source the wood we're

going to talk about and sustainable from

sustainably managed forests we're really

doing a great disservice and what we'll

see likely is that in different parts of

the world these issues will be more

challenged than others to do that here

in North America in Europe we have the

chance to Source from from reasonably

well-managed forests or very well

managed at times but obviously the

southern hemisphere where you see all

that red is of great concern that we

don't exasperate the issues of

deforestation and so every time we talk

about it we underscore that this is an

important beginning

um so kind of stepping back and why is

it that we're here today

um and looking out at the cities that we

all are used to living around

um why are they built the way they are

and obviously the answer that's really

the Industrial Revolution the sort of

onset of wrought iron and and ductile

steel the introduction of concrete and

being able to move it on mass and the

Industrial Revolution allowed us to

reshape the skylines of every city on

earth and now at this point every city

on earth largely is starting to look the

same we'd build the same way everywhere

with those two materials and the big

change is what we just talked about the

only reason to start over and in

Reinventing the wheel essentially on

tall buildings is ultimately the issue

of climate change and that's why this is

a new conversation that we're we're

trying to have it's really only the last

10 years as we all start to get our

heads into it that this even becomes an

appropriate conversation steel and

concrete are great materials

until you consider their footprint and

the other reality is what's happened

over the last hundred years is although

a hundred years ago we were able to

build very significant large wood

buildings and historically even dating

back a lot longer we built large wood

buildings what's happened over the last

hundred years is our building codes have

slowly actually taken away and actually

capped the limits of what we were

allowed to build so in this diagram here

this is a four-story wood building based

on the maximum we were allowed to build

in British Columbia again a very

Progressive wood culture but that was as

tall as we were allowed to build in wood

and a couple years ago

they changed that to allow six stories

in 2009 which was I think the first in

North America to allow us to go to six

stories and what they were imagining is

taking two by four kind of construction

and going bigger

but by the time we passed that six story

change my good friend Andrew here had

already built his update right 2008 that

had already built a building that we're

going to he'll talk about in a minute

this nine stories tall in London so our

building code in Canada which was the

most Progressive in North America at

that time was still not even catching up

with what Andrew had already done which

is very frustrating when you wanna

create these ideas but more importantly

the way I always tell this story is I

was riding my bike with my son across

Japan and I had got a text message from

the office saying hey it's really great

Sick Story just code just passed in BC

isn't that exciting and I quickly

emailed or texted my office back and

said that's great guys but I just came

out of a building this tall

and more importantly it was built 1400

years ago in a high Earthquake song in a

wet climate like BC where I live and yet

if we could do it 1400 years ago why

can't we do it today and the fact is no

place on Earth largely no place on Earth

has a code that actually understands and

accepts the idea that we would ever

consider building that big today with

some slight exceptions in places like

the UK

um and and you know frankly there are

many places like Russia is a cap on

three stories some places Switzerland

not long ago had two stories as maximum

so

I guess what that comes to is the idea

that we are at a moment in time a real

transfer transformation and time in the

way we build and that in some ways it

reflects the Era of Good survival and

that when he stepped out for the World's

Fair and said he was going to build this

building in wrought iron at the time

City councilors didn't like it many city

councilors in the city of Paris said

okay we'll let you build it but you have

to tear it down five years from now

because it's such an ugly eyesore and of

course today it's the symbol of France

and it changed the way many people

imagined what was possible

what in turn happened of course is what

we all know is the great race that

happened from City to City around the

world to build high so the Chrysler

Building was going up in New York and

then the Empire State Building had to be

taller and what that was doing was

pushing our engineers and pushing our

thinking and our imagination to the

ceiling so that we

basically shape the cities now that

we're all used to such that we never

walk by a 60-story tall building and

sort of think it's going to fall down on

us we became accepted and accustomed to

it and yet strangely enough with with

wood and we're going to get into it in

more detail the Opposites happened we've

become over the last hundred years our

ideas that you can't possibly hold up a

big building in Wood well my office that

I just moved into just a week and a half

ago is 105 year old building heavy

Timber and eight stories tall

eight stories measured from the parking

garage big giant solid Timbers obviously

we were doing it 100 years ago in many

places not just my office and and yet

we've lost that sort of sense of

opportunity

so the great thing is the race is on

so right there is nine the nine Story

one is Andrew's building Murray Grove

but there's proposals in Norway there's

a proposal in Austria there are

proposals happening all over the world

now for us to start creating the race

and build real buildings at these

Heights

um

I can't remember where we transitioned

we're going to find out in a second so

um really basically I think we are going

to transition here the change starts

with the materials

so we're going to talk to you about Mass

Timber which is the material that we're

both working in which is um massive

engineered Timbers so these are large

like we're here today looking at the

glue Lambs above us here

um lsls which is uh laminated laminated

strand Lumber laminated veneer Lumber

LVL glulams and CLT CLT is the material

which my office has been working with

principally CLT is a very simple very

straightforward material it's secondary

grade Timber planks about

um an inch thick by three inches wide

and they're laid out and glued using a

water-based PVA adhesive and then cross

laminated against each other so um put

in laid out at 90 degree angles so it's

like a jumbo plywood is what we're

talking about and then those panels come

out of the factory at about 50 feet by

about 12 feet wide and then a CNC cut to

the appropriate shapes for for their use

so talk to you about a case study and

this is a uh this is my office

this is us this is the cafe

um in uh in East London opposite my

office this is me here and uh this is me

here and this is me here

and this is me over here so we're we're

a little office that tries to look a lot

bigger than we are

so Murray Grove is um about 15 minutes

walk from my office here this is the

Jolly Roger Pub on Murray Grove which

was uh closed down by the council and uh

because they plan one too many bank

robberies in there and um

and we got the the commission to look at

doing um uh how an apartment building

there

um from a local developer from an East

End developer

um and we had a long conversation with

them about the opportunity of building

this building in Timber

which was uh which was an amazing

conversation in in hindsight

um

they were

we built a building from Cross

eliminated Timber about five years

previous to that and every time a client

came in the door we'd discussed with

them the idea or the principle of doing

these buildings in Cross eliminated

timber in massive Timber and after years

of refusal and years of people just

getting up and walking out of my office

we managed to hone this argument down in

terms of of the argument to be presented

so we have this very clear understanding

of the kind of the nature of the

advantages of building in heavy Timber

so we sit the client down talk to them

about this building here we have a

I'm going to shine this in my eye trying

to find out which way it is there you go

um honeycomb cross laminated Timber

structure so every panel is working in

this building so this is a building

which we're talking about completely in

Timber so the Elevator Shaft the stair

shaft the external walls floor slabs a

lot of the internal walls all made from

massive Timber so the whole thing acts

as a honeycomb if you like which means

that you don't have the same necessity

for for columns or load paths traveling

in direct lines through the building

which means you can alternate the plan

across the floors so this is a decided

Advantage for our client

so cross laminated Timber has the

advantages of of like a jumbo plywood if

you like has the advantages of acting as

a beam as when that a wall will act as a

beam so the walls are carrying the load

from across across the length of the

wall and the floor slab will work in

both directions so you have a you have

the the primary Timbers on top and below

and that's your primary load path and

then the Timbers in the middle will give

you a secondary load path which makes

your slab stiff across the width

um in terms of moisture and stability

again they're very stable materials so

we had we had a terrible thing happen

about

um Last Summer the end of last summer it

reached the Dizzy Heights of about 75

degrees in London and um we had one of

the one of the cladding panels popped

off the building and fell onto the

sidewalk

um I want to say narrowly missing a baby

but that's not the case but we uh so

everybody you know so of course the

developer phones me up on the weekend

and you know running down there and

everybody's like well this is just

because of the Timber system you know

because of your Timber structure so we

had to re-survey the building

um after two years of complete two and a

half years complete and um on re-serving

the building we found that the whole

building had moved over the period

um since construction by four

millimeters

which is in metric an eighth of an inch

so Boggle as we say in England

so um the sketch that we that we show

our clients that we discussed with the

with the clients that come in is to talk

about this building

um instead of a slab and column building

such as you're building concrete to talk

about a panelized system and that the

weight of this building is a quarter of

the weight of concrete so it's the first

thing we sit down we say look if we're

building a building that's a core to the

weight of concrete we don't need a tower

crane we can do the whole thing from the

back of a truck with a mobile crane we

need a causative we need about a third

of the amount of Foundations on this

building

and also it's fast it's a very accurate

very easy material to work with and very

very fast so we did a comparative

program for the client showing them a

concrete frame building going up in

about 18 months and the equivalent

Timber building going up in less than a

year and in fact when we from when we

started demolitions when the first

people moved in was 11 months

so just uh in terms of how we built this

building these panels here this is a

diagram showing the panel layout on one

of the floors here so these are the

these are the biggest panels we could

get through the channel tunnel which are

about

um 36 feet long by about two and a half

meter wide so that's what just over

eight feet by 36 feet and these are our

floor slabs here so you can see this is

a principal low path came from front to

back and then these are the walls here

so these are bedroom walls and you can

see this is the party wall in this

situation so this is one apartment two

and this is a big four bed apartment

here so you can see how they're

separated there so these are so we're

able to move these party walls across

the structure giving us that varied plan

which allows us to change the building

as it goes up so on nine floors we've

got five different floor plans on nine

floors so in terms of fire the way that

it works in the UK is we have a system

of compartmentation which is where we we

separate we separate out the apartments

from each other by having a one-hour

fire separation between each department

and then a two hour five separation uh

on the lobby and the uh and the Elevator

Shaft so the idea being is that if

there's a fire in this apartment here

then this apartment's got an hour to uh

to finish watching what they're looking

at on TV and then to uh and then to get

leave

so just in in quick terms I'm doing this

quite quickly so to give Michael some

time to talk about the work that he's

been doing but

um this is a section through our

building here so this is the uh the

floor slab which is a six inch Timber

slab and then five inches for the walls

here

and then we have an acoustic insulation

that goes and wraps up the end there and

we have a screed on top and that's for

an acoustic separation but also gives us

a thermal mass as well so we're able to

put underfloor heating in this screed

here

and then we have uh a void insulation

and plasterable below here on the

outside of the building here we have a

breather membrane would you call that

like a Tyvek kind of stuff so yeah so

breathe a membrane on the outside of the

building and then we want to run a rail

system down that and we push the

insulation on top of that and then we

have a simple

um rain screen cladding system on the

outside which is made from a wood pulp

and cementitious tile

so very simple construction method

oh yeah

that's it

that's not schematic that's a

construction drawing painted green

it's that's really it's it's a platform

construction so it's so the wall panels

sit

on the edge of the floor panels

and there's angles there there's a

little angle bracket that sits there and

then in localized positions we've got

some screws that sit underneath the wall

panel here just a strength just for

compression for for creep on the edge of

the slab

but that that's really it's um the whole

principle was to make sure that the

building was incredibly simple the idea

was con always to to get the building

built so to make sure that the building

was in was very simple so that there

were no kind of um no complications for

the contractor no excuses for the

contractor to say oh this is far too

difficult thing to do so we made it very

very simple

you can see this is a section here

through the lift shaft so we have a

separate

um a separate panel here for the lift

shaft and these are the internal walls

up against there so you have just a 40

mil that sort of um inch and three

quarter separation between the two

so this should explain it this is about

the idea here so this is the

construction process so this is our

ground floor

concrete slab this is London here it's

my office over there this is beautiful

isn't it so

the process of construction was that on

a Tuesday Morning a truck arrived with

four Austrian carpenters and some panels

on the back

and then on a Wednesday another truck

arrived on a Thursday another truck

arrived and on a Thursday night they

went home to Austria and were tucked up

in bed so they built a story in three

days Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and they

built a story a week so in 27 work days

we built Nine Stories

and you can see no crane

yeah

and that's the finished result

I'd like to play once more

no

bracing for stability or for sheer no

because all the walls are working

so all the sheer forces all the P Delta

Forces if you like pass through the

slabs pass through the front elevation

and down

does that make sense so all that because

all the because the connections run

along the length of each one of the wall

each one of the wall panels

as we well the because it's a platform

construction you laid so the first thing

that happens you lay the lay this the

floor slabs if you like and then really

the sequence of construction across the

building

um is you know is you start in one

corner and you work your way back you

have a series of um you have a series of

angles of uh sort of a temporary

propping which you screw into place to

to hold the walls at 90 degrees

well they're dropped in by Crane and

they're dropped in vertically

does that make sense and you throw you

you do put in some temporary diagonals

for a couple panels to support them

until you start making the right angles

that hold it together yeah just just as

you would with like wood frame in that

way when you tilt a wallet

so this is the um

so this is uh some of the construction

here you can see this is the uh the

first fix here running through for the

electrics and for the and for the uh the

gas lines

um and you can see here the connections

that we're talking about so the whole

building is put together using uh three

inch galvanized brackets at uh 18 inch

centers with four inch screws

so that's uh three guys with uh cordless

screwdrivers and one guy driving the

crane

the argument that we had the discussion

that we had with our developer client

about the building was that

when we sat him down and we explained to

him the environmental and sustainable

benefits of building this building in

Timber

he said the thing is Andrew I don't give

a monkeys for the environment

I'm not interested you're gonna have to

sell this to me in a completely

different way

so we sold it to him on the basis of

speed and efficiency and cost we were

cost equivalent to concrete but we were

six months quicker so he said okay well

that's fine we can go with the timber

system but I don't want anybody living

in this building to know that this is a

Timber building

because I'm worried that they won't buy

it if they think this is some kind of

like sustainable exercise you know and

they're not going to touch the building

at all so we said okay fine we just want

to build a building so we covered the

interior of the building with gyprock

here

which at the time is kind of you know

when you've got the sauna sort of stage

here and then you go to this it's a

little bit heartbreaking

especially being in this sort of

situation but actually I think that in

hindsight what's what what this has done

is to strengthen our argument in terms

of

proving a viable alternative to concrete

and steel because the viability of this

building has not been about the

aesthetic it's been about the structure

and the efficient the efficiency of the

construction process so

that's actually worked very well in

terms of being able to talk about Timber

as an alternative using this building as

an example and in addition to that we

leaked it to the newspapers anyway and

uh before the building started on site

there was a two-page article in the

local newspaper and which has a

circulation of about 15 million and they

they said that this building was going

to be built in Timber and a week later

the building was put on sale off plan

and the whole building all 29 Apartments

sold in an hour and 15 minutes

and they sold to people who cared about

the environment they sold to people who

actually were really excited about the

fact that the building was built out of

Timber and and at this moment are busily

taking the gyprock off the walls

so you can see here this is a this is

during the construction process and this

is the end of the job so we have here an

inborn balcony no coal bridging issues

nothing like that we've got um torch

applied felt on the balconies so I come

up I came into the site here onto the

building site and you've got some Polish

blokes sitting on the corner there with

a blow torch in a Timber building

putting the felt on which is a bit bit

of a heart-stopping moment

so there we go finished product

okay so um you know Andrew's building

has been an inspiration for a whole lot

of people around the world including

myself

um we

um I had was a partner in a firm about

35 people until just a few weeks ago as

Mary said and I split off my firm this

is move-in day just a week and a half

ago into our new space as I said this is

actually our new space in behind the pla

where's the pointer

um

how do I use the pointer where's your

pointer that's better

um he's in behind here these are Timber

columns holding up this 105 year old

building

um and uh you know it's a real pleasure

to work in a building like that it's

much like this building it just feels

natural and great

um so you know my firm and my practice

I've built things all over the world a

lot of international airports a lot of

wood buildings as well in the last

decade and more and more as I did that I

became sort of vested in the idea that

there has to be this other way around

these discussions of climate and so

forth and around the work that Andrew's

been doing what that triggered is

something

um you know assertive attitude

um I guess in my practice and personally

that a lot of the conversation we've

been having about green environmental

buildings has been either the sort of

checklist approach to lead buildings

which you know is a good thing

um or the sort of tendency for us to

kind of create additive buildings we'll

put some photos panels on the outside

we'll put a green roof on on them will

sort of add to the building with things

in order to somehow create a green

argument around the building and there's

this sort of sense that I had some time

ago that maybe we actually just need to

hit reset and ask the question are we

staring at the trees or are we looking

at the forest is there a big decision

that we could make that would make a

more profound change in the way

buildings work worldwide so finding the

forest through the trees actually became

the name of the system that I'm going to

describe now which is a new way that has

just been published to um

to build very very large buildings

about a year and a bit ago we were we

proposed and received a grant funding to

basically set out with some Engineers

some cost Consultants some code

Consultants to build what now is a 240

page document that really lays out the

plans of how to build very large

buildings up to 30 stories tall and wood

using this new system we designed it

very specifically around Vancouver and

we decided that our report needed to

demonstrate that this was a rigorous

from a technical point of view but also

rigorous enough to show that it was cost

effective and tell the story why

consumers would want to buy it why

developers won't want to do it how

people would ultimately Market these

ideas and also obviously the the other

sort of critical parts of how they

worked and what their sustainable story

really would be so in Vancouver where I

live it's high earthquake zone

we want to really challenge our system

by building in the highest earthquake

zone in Canada by proposing it in that

environment and also proposing it in a

denser Urban environment and really work

with contractors to understand how we

would actually technically build

something on that scale

so the system's actually remarkably

simple the first version of this I built

with my son when he was six and we sat

down on the ground together and put it

together sometimes the best ideas are

just that easy and I sort of pulled I

work with some outstanding world-class

wood engineers in Vancouver I'm lucky I

come from a wood culture and there's

some outstanding wood Engineers I've

worked with the engineers at this

building in New York and and my

engineers in Vancouver actually have

been helping the New York firm

understand wood a little more we we have

a great culture for wood and when I

pulled them aside I said guys you know

my son Michael and I've been making this

and I really think this is interesting

and this has some real potential to

build big and what do you guys think and

they sort of said yeah this actually

works and we started working on it more

and more over the last five years until

we reached this point where we realized

that it's not only possible it's

actually really practical to do this and

it's shaking things up a little bit in

the big conversation worldwide because

this just came out two weeks ago

publicly it's kind of an interesting

moment for me just personally for our

firm because what's happened is you know

we spoke to CNN a week ago and we're

talking to Bulgaria newspapers and some

guy from Iraq concert you know contacted

me about how to do this so it's become a

very quick and very instant conversation

because it seems so different the idea

you know to get to Nine Stories is

astounding to talk about 30 stories

obviously is a very new paradigm shift

for the world to get their head around

and uh and ultimately we think it's very

realistic much like what Andrew just

described the idea is motivated by

sustainable methods of building these

big Urban buildings but also it's about

how we innovate for faster lighter less

expensive and better performing

uh for the global scales of challenges

and that those challenges again climate

change World housing we've got to deal

with them because as we talk World

housing especially in the developing

world the issues kind of collide if we

build the way we're building today to

solve that three billion people that

need a new affordable home in the next

20 years we are obviously going to

significantly impact climate footprint

and we can't do that there has to be a

new way so the um the system as I say is

really simple and in our case we use a

little bit of Steel it's an effectively

a 98 wood building the elevator like the

address building the elevator cores the

stair cores or all wood these using

these Mass Timber Products but we use a

little bit of wood steel and the reason

we do that is in a high earthquake zone

we need something that's ductile that

gives a little and gives and sort of has

a little more elasticity to it and so we

use the steel ironically as the weak

joint in the design so for for anybody

in engineering this is a strong column

weak beam design and what's interesting

in the way we approach that is we had

some of the best seismic engineers in

North America do our peer review and

what what's interesting is the formula

technical way that an engineer now

analyzes our building is it uses the

exact same software you would in

concrete so it's actually very easy for

a lot of Engineers to get their heads

into how to do this it's just using this

very new material the material is mass

Timber materials that Andrew touched on

laminated strand Lumber laminated veneer

Lumber and CLT cross laminated Timber

have been around for a long time

a hundred years ago in BC if you wanted

to build a fireproof wall you took two

by fours and nailed them together or two

by sixes and nailed them together and

made a massive solid wall so when I

renovate a building in my community I'm

often hitting a massive piece of wood

and the only reason it's there is

because of fire it's completely hidden

in the wall but what we know is massive

massive pieces of wood actually resist

fire and behave really predictably in

fire which is very counterintuitive to

the way a lot of people feel about wood

but the difference is it's easy to light

a fire with a little piece of little

sticks to start it up it's very hard if

you start with a log and try to catch it

on fire it's very difficult to get it to

work that's why the torches on the

balcony weren't weren't lighting up

necessarily for for when they were

putting the waterproofing on

so

just to kind of give you an overview I'm

not going to go into a lot of the detail

of our report but what we were trying to

do again is say it's one thing to have a

good sustainable message but what we

know statistically is 95 of the public

will tell you that they will pay more

for something that is green but only

five percent actually do this system

these ideas don't sell because they're

good for the planet that's not what's

going to happen even though luckily

Andrew's building sold out with people

with that attitude that's not going to

propagate the idea so instead we had to

make this cost effective when part of it

was speed and part of it was showing

that it had all the same flexibility as

any concrete building so this is a

concrete building and what we did in our

study was we actually looked at a

12-story concrete building 20-story

concrete building a 30-story concrete

building in every step of the way

because concrete is what we build with

in Vancouver not steel every step of the

way we would compare our wood system to

a concrete system no matter what the

what the metrics were going to be we

would get a rigorous comparison and what

came really important in that was that

in order to get developers to want to do

these kinds of buildings they want

flexibility and we wanted to prove that

we could do this not just in residential

buildings But ultimately in Office

Buildings and in order to do that you

really want a plan a building plan

that's call it that's that's wall free

it's just open free plan

so that means in an office you can lay

out your office space however you want

and you can build if it was residential

you can build your residential unit

wherever you want so in our system we're

using these large-scale panels and we

tilt them up and they're 64 feet long if

they're LVL or LSL so they're six

stories tall when you tip them up and

we're building up to 12 stories we're

building with glulam columns just like

these big beams here

slabs of these large mass Timber panels

a central core and an elevator core made

entirely of the of the Timber panels and

some steel ledgers that help us again

with the flexibility of the system

what we found is up to 20 stories up to

12 we have this free beautiful free open

plan you could have all glass exterior

which a lot of buildings are made that

way that's not the way hopefully we'll

be building buildings in the future

because it's obviously terrible from an

energy Performance Point of View but you

know this gives the developers

flexibility then what we found is if we

move away from the columns and put solid

panels on the exterior we can actually

get up to 20 stories or we could put

brace walls inside a little bit more

like Andrew's building with a few more

load-bearing walls on the inside and

ultimately if we to get to 30 stories

we'd mix those two things make a fairly

solid exterior and walls on the inside

since this diagram is made we've

actually been able to show that we can

do option two and three here all the way

to 30 stories which means that we can

make an office building 30 stories tall

in Wood means we can make a flexible

plan for a developer to do a housing

project in 30 stories which is an

extraordinary sort of result

that we were truthfully a bit surprised

by as we push the engineering further

and further

so I'm going to go quickly now in this

part but as I said what was important

about our system was that we tested

everything so the in this case we

actually met with

construction companies some of the

biggest ones in Canada and talked about

how you would actually erect them and

for us what was funny with that is that

they didn't know who to bring to the

meetings then this isn't something

anybody does do we bring wood Carpenters

no because these panels are massive this

isn't wood carpentry we don't do we

bring concrete guys no because that

doesn't make any sense there really

isn't a clear trade that actually builds

this it's probably closest to

Steel in some respects because it's kind

of a kit of parts that goes together but

it's in many respects kind of this big

unknown because nobody's been doing it

um but they were excited about it and

that was what was great is every single

group we talked to from contractors to

developers to building code officials

um were really a intrigued and B after

they learned and read more and

understood what we were talking about

really all of the obstacles seem to be

slowly disappearing for us everybody was

coming on side because the ideas seemed

to be researched and understood well

enough and with the contractors to our

surprise we basically are building up

the central elevator core bracing it

and building in lifts of six stories at

a time so you can see these panels the

Elegance is basically the simple way for

everybody to think about it is a two by

four the way we build small residential

houses has now become a giant piece of

wood that's eight feet wide and 64 feet

long and three and a half inches thick

and at times seven inches thick to allow

us to get these huge Heights

so again without going into any detail

what I just want to point out is

throughout our study what we're able to

do is compare concrete to Steel to Wood

constantly back and forth show how they

worked acoustically show how they worked

in fire

show how they worked from a building

envelope point of view and our sort of

studies filled with millions of these

diagrams to really help articulate and

one of the things that almost became a

surprise to many people is that in

concrete a lot of the time we had

thicker slabs or thicker walls than we

would for the same building of the same

height and wood and the reason is quite

simple Andrew touched on it a wood

building is one-fourth to one-sixth the

weight of a concrete building so when

you're building in a high earthquake

zone and you build in concrete as you go

higher and higher the mass of the

building becomes very great and the

forces that you're trying to resist are

very very great because the building

itself is so heavy when you do it in

Wood you're actually resisting less

force and what we found in a building

that's 12 stories tall in Vancouver you

would typically see the concrete walls

around the elevator shafts be a foot

thick and a wood they were only nine and

a half inches thick

so it was almost a huge surprise to us

that wood actually resulted in more

floor space and a you know more simple

system

so again we went through systems and how

they were integrated and we went through

all the different conditions of

balconies you don't need to kind of we

don't need to spend too much time and we

wanted to check the boxes of the

standard challenges

um currently no building code has

imagined these systems so certainly the

code is a big one but really the issues

are kind of consistent wood shrinks and

that's true but what we when you build a

very tall building if it's as wood

shrinks as it dries out the problem is

you can have real technical problems

with how that building goes together in

our system uh if we built it on the

right the platform-based system where

you build up to a certain height and

then put a floor in build up and put a

floor in it would actually result in

adding up the floor slabs and as you get

very tall that actually deals with a bit

of shrinkage although I understand very

little in his building at Nine Stories

once you're at 20 or 30 that can become

a bigger issue so what we've been

working on is a system where the floors

are actually sit in between and we don't

absorb the shrinkage and so it's a

really effective in fact it shrinks

about the same amount as any concrete

building would so that solves some

technical problems

I'm just going to keep going a little

quicker now

so from a moisture point of view just

like in Murray Grove an Andrew's project

we don't put the wood structure out

there for the weather to beat it up

there's always an envelope that protects

it and that's a really important thing

I'm slowly learning all the issues that

are the buzzwords for for the public

that right underneath the CNN article

all of their kind of concerns and

complaints and they're they're good

comments they're very standard comments

but there's also a lot that's just

misunderstood and there's no intention

to build these things and have them sit

out in the weather and rot and be

exposed to termites and so forth those

things are all taken care of

Acoustics is the biggest issue probably

the hardest issue of all the things we

dealt with is just that in a big

building concrete resists the mass of

the concrete actually is very effective

at dealing with acoustic issues between

Suites in a building and getting these

buildings to work is very possible but

it also requires some pretty

sophisticated detailing

and from a fire point of view and Andrew

touched on this a little bit

we have two systems big tall buildings

in North America have to resist a

two-hour fire and what that means is

whether the steel concrete or wood they

just they have to stand for two hours so

that the firefighters can get in them

people can get out of the building

safely firefighters can go in and fight

the fire and also the building doesn't

collapse during that time and damage

property or kill people down below it

that's just the way the codes work

naturally and to deal with that we had

to prove that we had an answer for two

hour fire rating for a tall building and

the way we do that there were two

options one is that we just cover

everything in two layers of fire rated

drywall and that creates a two hour fire

rating with some very specific technical

details of how we do it and that's

called encapsulation on the left but the

other that's more exciting and for us in

Vancouver the the building code

authorities are really interested in is

something called charring where we

actually

calculate the thickness of the material

of the wood on the outside that will

burn over two hours and there's

different calculations for it but it's

roughly six millimeters per minute and

if you calculate that or sorry 0.6

millimeters per minute if you calculate

that over a two hour burn it's going to

be about two and a half inches two and

three quarters of an inches of of burn

that you will lose of wood and that

assumes your sprinkler system didn't

turn on and pretty much catastrophic

conditions

as long as the structure the meat of the

material left over after that burn is

strong enough to hold up the building

you've satisfied that two hour fire

rating and our codes in Canada and I

think here as well around heavy Timber

buildings like this actually have

understood that for 100 years and so

because of the nature of these big

panels that's how we actually can solve

fire at a large scale

so that's the sort of standard burn

I mean in some parts of the world we

actually which is fun we actually

protect uh steel construction with Wood

Construction

which just goes to that

counter-intuitive reality that we need

to change people's perception of wood

and really ultimately this is where

we're at right now we're at that next

step of building it and worth in the

next few weeks I'm hoping we'll announce

in Vancouver that we're going to build a

20-story wood building which will be the

world's tallest for now and hopefully

somebody beats us real soon maybe it'll

be Andrew in London

um I think that's it right I think

that's it for now so we have in our

presentation maybe we'll jump to

questions but what we also have are some

other example projects so if you guys

are interested we could also just show

you some of our work some of the places

we're using playing with these materials

maybe we'll pull that up and then at the

same time you guys can ask questions

anybody got him