Archinect - News

Record-setting 50-story mass timber skyscraper approved in Perth

2023-10-05T17:55:00-04:00

Australian architecture firm Elenberg Fraser is moving forward with a new $350 million AUD ($223 million USD) high-rise tower in Perth on the country's west coast that could set the record as the world’s tallest mass timber structure once completed.

Plans for the new 627-foot C6 Tower were approved last week by the city’s Metro Inner-South Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP) for client Grange Development.

The firm’s newly-formed research arm Fraser & Partners will be leading the project and says their hybrid steel frame and wood design will utilize a total of 9,678 cubic yards of locally sourced timber in its construction. At 50 stories, it is more than twice the size of the Milwaukee Ascent Tower and another 11 stories taller than SHoP’s forthcoming 39-stroy Atlassian Headquarters in Sydney. Grange says it will be the first carbon-negative construction in the history of Western Australia, though some academics caution this is misleading under current IPCC guidelines.

Image c...

Mass timber rose to new heights in 2022

2022-12-24T08:00:00-05:00

In 2022, hardly a week passed on Archinect without the hottest construction material of the year making the news: Mass timber was everywhere — in novel conceptual proposals, competition-winning entries, experimental school projects, and, increasingly so, in completed, real-life, and often record-shattering buildings.

And for a good reason. With the world finally realizing the built environment's profound impact on global carbon emissions, more and more architects (and clients!) started ditching the long-time darling concrete due to its abysmal environmental performance and favoring carbon-trapping timber products, which have also been attributed to increased building comfort for its occupants.

As part of Archinect's ongoing 2022 Year in Review series, let's take a look at some of the mass timber story highlights in our news this year.

A selection of completed buildings this year

Ascent tower when it structurally topped out in December 2021. Image courtesy Thornton Tomasetti/Twitte...

A new mass timber proposal in Zanzibar would challenge Milwaukee's Ascent tower for the world record

2022-11-01T17:52:00-04:00

A proposed new residential project in Zanzibar, Tanzania, could challenge Milwaukee's Ascent tower for the title of world’s tallest mass timber structure after being unveiled to the public on October 1.

Rising 28 stories to a height of approximately 315 feet, the Burj Zanzibar is designed by the Berlin-based practice OMT Architects and will occupy a plot in the seaside city of Unguja’s Fumba Town, a roughly one-mile-wide planned “eco-town” designed by the German engineer consortium CPS to attract tech workers and businesses to the country.

In a statement to a local newspaper, OMT’s founder, Leander Moons, said it will stand as a “new ecosystem for the future of living.” The tower will reportedly feature a total of 266 residences (7 more than Ascent’s offerings) priced between $79,000 for a studio and $950,000 for the 26th-floor penthouse. Additional amenities include private garden terraces, a podium pool, and a retail component. CPS director Sebastian Dietzold added his view that ...

The rise of tall mass timber development could herald a wooden renaissance in Chicago

2022-08-12T13:33:00-04:00

Chicago’s steel-framed architectural identity may be about to change thanks to the reintroduction of mass timber as the primary building material in a new 9-story tower designed by local studio Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture for developer Sterling Bay. Noted in a report from Chicago YIMBY, the new project "will be the tallest proposal of its kind in the region."

Sterling Bay is the same developer behind the controversial $6 billion Lincoln Yards plan, which is set to be completed in three years. Their new proposal, sited several blocks to the north of 2100 N. Southport Avenue, is worth a reported $50 million and would provide the Lincoln Park neighborhood with a total of 130 apartment units once it is completed the same year. In a press release, Sterling Bay's CEO Andy Gloor said it will "set a new standard for future-forward development in [Chicago]."

This news comes at a pivotal time in the use of m...

New California building codes allow for high-rise mass timber buildings

2022-08-08T18:33:00-04:00

California building codes were updated in July to allow for the construction of mass timber buildings up to 18 stories tall. [...] "There's been extensive testing for this application and taking mass timber into taller wood buildings [...] The building codes are very conservative in the U.S. Even though Europe has been using mass timber for many years it's still relatively new in the U.S."

The new California building codes come as mass timber applications in buildings gain momentum across North America. Most notable is the recently-opened Ascent Tower by Korb + Associates Architects in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was crowned the world’s tallest timber-concrete hybrid building.

Previously on Archinect: CTBUH certifies Ascent as the world's tallest mass timber hybrid building

CBS Sacramento also reported on a new local proposal called the Lot X development, which includes a five-story mass timber office building.

CTBUH certifies Ascent as the world's tallest mass timber hybrid building

2022-08-02T17:47:00-04:00

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has officially declared the recently-opened Ascent tower by Korb + Associates Architects the world’s tallest timber-concrete hybrid building.

The 25-story, 86.6-meter (284-foot) structure in Milwaukee takes the distinguished title in two of the mass timber categories: It is both the tallest timber building overall and the tallest concrete-timber hybrid building. The previous world’s tallest timber building was Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal, Norway, certified by CTBUH in 2019, which stood at roughly 280 feet. Previously holding the record of tallest concrete-timber hybrid building was the approximately 276-foot HoHo building in Vienna, Austria.

Previously on Archinect: World's tallest mass timber tower opens in Milwaukee

“Ascent is a very exciting project,” said CTBUH Director of Research and Thought Leadership Daniel Safarik. “It is helping advance the conversation about how we build more sustainable and healthy cities, especially ...

A new tall mass timber proposal is heating up the race to the top in Toronto

2022-07-15T13:02:00-04:00

Around the same time the new world record holder for tall mass timber buildings — the 25-story Ascent tower — is making its much-awaited debut in Milwaukee, another North American design proposal has been revealed in Toronto that would surmount the historic milestone by a total of six stories if approved.

The proposed 31-story residential tower is being floated by 26-year-old developer Jackey Chen, who says an impressive 80% of the building’s 494 total apartment units will be made affordable under the city’s Open Door program, with project costs totaling between $75 and $80 million. Toronto studio ICON Architects will serve as the building’s designer.

The development would entail the preservation of three semi-detached heritage buildings located in front of its would-be podium and take around two years to complete following an anticipated start of construction sometime before 2025. The proposed plan would join a list of at least five other mass timber developments in the GTA that in...

World's tallest mass timber tower opens in Milwaukee

2022-07-14T17:47:00-04:00

A historic milestone in the use of mass timber as a construction material is about to be passed as Korb + Associates Architects’ aptly-named Ascent tower is finally set to open tomorrow, July 15, in Milwaukee.

Standing 25 stories and a total of 86.6 meters (284 feet), the tower is now officially the world record holder for the largest mass timber structure in the world, surpassing Norway’s Mjøsa Tower by a scant 1.2 meters (or roughly 4 feet). It cost $80 million to construct and will provide Milwaukee’s East Town neighborhood with a total of 259 apartment units built in partnership with structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti.

Ascent is now Milwaukee’s second mass timber residential development after the nearby Timber Lofts and will soon be joined by a 15-story design called The Edison, which is set to open next year.

Image courtesy Thornton Tomasetti

2022 has already been an exciting year for the use of the highly sustainable material in architectu...

New CTBUH study on tall mass timber gives us a look at the impacts of the material industry-wide

2022-05-26T13:37:00-04:00

A new study from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has revealed important statistics that provide a clearer picture of the present state of tall mass timber construction across the globe.

There are now a total of 66 completed mass timber projects worldwide totaling of least 8 stories or higher. Nearly two-thirds (64% or 54 buildings) of all projects are residential, while office buildings account for 19% (16 buildings), and the mixed-use typology currently makes up 14% (12 buildings). Including projects that are currently under construction or proposed, there were 139 total projects matching the audit’s criteria.

Illustration courtesy of CTBUH

In terms of height, 12 of the 20 tallest structures are located in Europe. Scandinavia had 4 of those, while the UK and Australia had 3 and 5 apiece, respectively. Additionally, the height of the world’s tallest timber building, now officially the soon-to-be-completed 25-story Ascent tower in Milwaukee, has tripled in jus...

What's it like inside the world’s newest mass timber developments?

2022-04-20T12:46:00-04:00

Above our heads, the pillars and struts of the pergola looked like the masts of a gigantic ship—their edges rounded, like huge pencils, to diminish the force of winds that can pummel the tower. Between the heft of the wooden building and the evanescence of the fog encircling it, the atmosphere was seductively calming—as long as my mind did not linger on the metaphor of the matchbox.

The New Yorker takes us on a whirlwind tour of some of the higher-profile mass timber developments that have debuted in recent years. Stops include the future site of Henning Larsen’s Fælledby development outside Copenhagen, the Oslotre As-designed seven-story Valle Wood, and Voll Arkitekter’s 18-story, 280-foot Mjøstårnet tower near Oslo, which is now officially the world’s tallest new timber building.

Mjøstårnet’s developer Arthur Buchardt was on hand to speak to its significance relative to the future of the industry as well as the role timber building could play in his country’s changing economy.

“Most of us already live in wooden buildings — only not so tall,” he explained to reporter Rebecca Mead. “Norway is an oil nation, but the oil will end. All the politicians talk about ‘green change’ — we must do something else that must be environmentally friendly, and we must use local resources. I thought I could build something like this, as an answer.”

...

White Arkitekter's new mass timber tower opens as the world's third tallest wooden building

2021-09-28T17:23:00-04:00

A new Swedish tower is pushing boundaries for mass timber design in an effort to create a “public living room” for one small city just south of the Arctic Circle.

The Sara Cultural Centre is the second tallest wooden building in any Scandinavian country and the third tallest in the world behind Voll Arkitekter’s 18-story, 280-foot Mjøstårnet near Oslo and the 276-foot HoHo Tower in Vienna.

Located in Skellefteå, the 246-foot Centre plays host to an art gallery, museum, library, and theater in a multi-volume carbon-negative building that also features welcoming amenities like a high-rise restaurant, hotel, and spa.

Image courtesy White Arkitekter

Two different construction systems were developed by White Arkitekter to complete the tower using a combination of glue-laminated columns and beams together with CLT cores, modules, shear walls that work together to distribute the shear load using as little material as possible. According to the architect, the combination of the two systems...

A critical look at mass timber's future impact

2021-03-22T15:14:00-04:00

It’s easy to imagine CLT becoming the next luxury building trend to invade the skylines of rapidly gentrifying cities, giving an eco-friendly excuse for remaking the city in service of maximized profit. [...] In order for mass timber to truly engage with the regenerative power of forests to help alleviate our current climate predicament, it must be linked to a greater movement towards ecological reformation at all scales.

In his latest piece for Failed Architecture, writer and architect Alexander Hadley takes a critical look at the future economical and environmental impact of the accelerating cross-laminated timber boom.

"Building from regenerative materials like trees instead of intensively extracted substances like concrete and steel is certainly part of a climate strategy," Hadley argues, "but only if it resists being absorbed into an agenda of profit-driven production with no long term-ecological considerations."

17-story wooden high-rise proposed in Tokyo

2020-11-02T13:30:00-05:00

Mitsui Fudosan and Takenaka Corporation are planning to build a 17-story wood-frame office tower in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district. With a proposed height of 70 meters, this would be the tallest wooden building in Japan.

Related: A much taller, 70-story wood-framed skyscraper was proposed by Sumitomo Forestry and Nikken Sekkei in 2018 to be built in Tokyo's Marunouchi business district by the year 2041.

France requires new public buildings to contain at least 50% wood

2020-02-10T18:56:00-05:00

The government of France is set to require that all new public buildings must be made at least 50% from wood or other sustainable materials from 2022 as it pushes for sustainable urban development. The local government in Paris had already pledged a greater use of natural materials such as wood, straw and hemp, and any buildings higher than eight storeys built for the 2024 Paris Olympics must be made entirely of timber.

As part of President Emmanuel Macron's climate action plan, a new measure announced by the country's Minister for Towns and Housing Julien Denormandie requires all new public buildings financed by the French State to contain at least 50% wood or other organic material, such as straw or hemp, by 2022.

Minister Denormandie also called for proposals to create 100 urban farms in priority neighborhoods, so called "green suburbs," as well as adding 90 new "eco-neighborhoods" to the already existing stock.

The "Sustainable City" plan is intended to showcase France's low-carbon ambitions in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris.

21-story timber tower—proposed as North America's tallest—wins U.S. government grant

2019-05-16T14:18:00-04:00

A downtown Milwaukee high-rise has found support from an unlikely source: the United States Department of Agriculture. The department’s Forestry Service division announced this week that it had awarded 41 grants totaling $8.9 million to businesses, universities, non-profits and tribal partners in 20 states to “create jobs, support fire-safe communities, restore healthy forest conditions, and spur environmentally sound innovation.”

Part of the grant will be allocated to Ascent, a potentially record-breaking mass timber tower in Milwaukee proposed by New Land Enterprises (previously on Archinect).

Image: Korb + Associates Architects.

"The funds will be used to support engineering work on the proposed 21-story, 201-unit apartment building," reports Jeramey Jannene for Urban Milwaukee. "New Land is partnering with Korb + Associates Architects on the building’s design and New York-based Thornton Tomasetti on the building’s structural engineering."

Meanwhile north of the U.S.-Canada border, another timber tower proposal in Vancouver, the Perkins+Will-designed Canada Earth Tower, promises to rise up to 40 stories and become the "world's next tallest wooden skyscraper."

World's tallest wooden skyscraper may grow in Vancouver

2019-05-06T13:56:00-04:00

If this mass timber tower is built as originally envisioned, the tallest of its kind in the world, it could set an extraordinary precedent and benchmark for not only green building construction but also the future of development along Vancouver’s Central Broadway corridor.

Daily Hive editor Kenneth Chan gives a detailed introduction of the Perkins+Will-designed Canada Earth Tower, a proposed timber tower that could rise up to 40 stories and accommodate around 200 residential units.

"The structure would be predominantly made out of fire-resistant wood, specifically cross-laminated timber (CLT)," Chan writes. "Floor plates, structural columns, and exteriors will use wood materials, while a concrete core containing the elevators and emergency staircase will be incorporated for seismic and fire safety reasons."

Image: Perkins+Will/Delta Land Development

Vancouver was once home to the planet's tallest wood building, when the 18-story, 178-foot UBC Brock Commons tower opened in 2017, but it lost the title in the following year to another nation with a noted economic and ecological interest in pushing timber as preferred building material—Norway's Mjøstårnet (Mjøsa Tower) topped out at 85.4 meters (280 feet) in 2018.

Perkins+Will made headlines in 2016 when ...

'World’s Tallest Timber Building' now officially ratified after CTBUH height criteria update

2019-03-14T18:20:00-04:00

[CTBUH] has verified the completion of Mjøstårnet, a mixed-use building in Brumunddal, Norway that now holds the unique title of the “World’s Tallest Timber Building.” At 85.4 meters, it is also the third-tallest building in Norway and the country’s tallest with mixed functions. This news coincides with the amendment of the CTBUH Height Criteria – the official guidelines upon which tall buildings are measured – to include timber as a recognized structural material.

The 18-story wooden structure Mjøstårnet (Mjøsa Tower) near Oslo, Norway popularly earned the title "World’s Tallest Timber Building" back in September 2018 when it structurally topped out. But it wasn't until a recent update of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's height criteria guidelines, that what truly constituted a 'timber' structural system was clearly defined.

The revised criteria for timber structures now requires that "both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning system must be constructed from timber. An ‘all-timber’ structure may include the use of localized non-timber connections between timber elements. A building of timber construction with a floor system of concrete planks, or concrete slab on top of timber beams, is still considered a ‘timber’ structure, as the concrete elements are not acting as the primary structure."

The case for more wooden buildings

2019-01-07T15:07:00-05:00

Governments can help nudge the industry to use more wood, particularly in the public sector—the construction industry’s biggest client. That would help wood-building specialists achieve greater scale and lower costs. Zero-carbon building regulations should be altered to take account of the emissions that are embodied in materials. This would favour wood as well as innovative ways of producing other materials.

The Economist compares the environmental impact of the industrialized world's most common building materials, cement and steel, with that of carbon-trapping wood, and how an earnest effort to reach the emission goals outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement cannot ignore building with timber on a much, much grander scale.

Proposed 21-story timber tower in Milwaukee would be Western Hemisphere's tallest wood building

2018-10-11T13:34:00-04:00

New Land Enterprises has announced a bold plan to build a 21-story mass timber apartment building in East Town. If completed, the building, known as Ascent, would be the tallest timber structure in the Western Hemisphere according to the company. The news comes just months after New Land released plans to build a seven-story mass timber office building, the city’s first, along the Milwaukee River in Westown.

The timber tower scheme was designed by Milwaukee-based Korb + Associates Architects with structural engineering input from Thornton Tomasetti. If completed as proposed, the 21-story residential building would rise 238 feet—considerably more than the currently tallest timber building in the Americas.

Image: Korb + Associates Architects.

The world's tallest timber tower structurally tops out in Norway

2018-09-06T14:24:00-04:00

Construction workers yesterday installed the final beam at Mjøstårnet (Mjøsa Tower), a wooden skyscraper project in the Norwegian town of Brumunddal, just north of Oslo. Now structurally topped out, the 18-story structure stands 85.4 meters tall and is officially the world's tallest timber tower.

Image: Mjøstårnet on Facebook

Once fully completed in March 2019, the tower designed by Trondheim-based Voll Arkitekter will house apartments, a hotel, and offices on 11,300 square meters (121,630 square feet).

Image: Mjøstårnet on Facebook

Photo: Anti / Jens Haugen, image via Mjøstårnet on Facebook

Image: Mjøstårnet on Facebook

Learn more about Mjøsa Tower in Archinect's previous coverage.

Record setting 12-story timber tower slated for downtown Portland gets the axe

2018-07-17T19:52:00-04:00

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided to run a pilot program to support two tall wood demonstration projects in order to test the potential of the increasingly popular building material. The first was a 10-story residential tower in Chelsea designed by SHoP. The second, a 12-story high rise slated for downtown Portland's Pearl District that would've been the tallest building in the country to use cross-laminated timber.

The New York project was scrapped last year, made unfeasible by a cooled-off real estate market and regulations prohibiting wooden towers over six stories that would've required onerous finagling. The deal to build Oregon's record-setting wooden tower, though, was still moving forward.

Designed by the Portland-based firm LEVER Architecture, the project had received a promising amount of support and pledge of public dollars. Money from the USDA's Tall Wood Building award helped fund testing and research; the Portland Housing Bureau had promised $6 milli...

Hickok Cole Architects propose a group of timber skyscrapers for Philadelphia

2018-04-30T13:15:00-04:00

[...] one Washington, D.C. architecture firm wants Philly to become a trailblazer in the future of high-rise construction. Specifically, it wants Comcast to build its rumored third tower out of wood — mass timber, to be exact. [...] At 62 stories, Timber Towers would be the first high-rise to utilize mass timber. Two office towers are linked by a connecting bridge, with a third tower including residences, a school and ground floor retail.

George Brown College selects finalists for design competition to build 12-story wood tower

2018-03-30T14:47:00-04:00

Timber Towers are on the rise, propelled by the growing availability of new wood technologies that promise major environmental benefits. Today, proposals for increasingly tall wooden structures are sprouting up everywhere from Portland to Brisbane, with the world's tallest wooden tower recently completing in British Columbia, and another on its way in Norway.

Amidst the enthusiasm, George Brown College announced plans last summer for a 12 story timber-framed building as part of the school's Toronto Waterfront expansion. Dubbed "the Arbour," the building will not only be a living example of sustainable design, but will also house a new Tall Wood Research Institute, alongside George Brown's Centre for Information and Computer Technology, a new child care facility, and additional research facilities.

To do so, the college conducted an invited design competition, for which the finalists were recently revealed. The chosen proposals include a tree-like structural concept from Pritzker win...

70-story wooden skyscraper proposed for Tokyo could become world's tallest

2018-02-15T13:57:00-05:00

Sumitomo Forestry Co. Ltd. has announced that it plans to build a 70-story 350-meter mixed-use skyscraper in Marunouchi, a central Tokyo business district, by the year 2041. [...] The project [...] is estimated to cost 600 billion JPY (5.5 billion USD). This is almost twice that of conventional high-rise buildings using current technology, but the company hopes to reduce costs by making technological advances in wood-based construction.

Image: Sumitomo Forestry

Wooden skyscrapers have been seeing an unprecedented boom phase in recent years, but even the more ambitious projects don't even come close to what Japanese company Sumitomo Forestry, in collaboration with Nikken Sekkei, is proposing to build in Tokyo by the year 2041.

Image: Sumitomo Forestry

To pull off the massive structure required for a 350-meter, 70-story wooden tower, as the concept W350 plan outlines, 185,000 cubic meters of timber are needed — the equivalent of 8,000 single-family homes.

Image: Sumitomo Forestry

"The planned structure is a hybrid wood and steel structure made from 90% wooden materials," the company explains. "It will use a braced tube structure in which steel frame vibration control braces (diagonal braces) are positioned inside a column and beam structure, made from a combination of wood and steel."

Framework Awarded $6M from City of Portland “Fast Starts” Program to Support Affordable Housing

2017-11-12T09:00:00-05:00

"By investing in Framework, our city will now be home to the first skyscraper made from wood in the United States. This project not only reflects Oregon’s leadership in the newly emerging wood products industry of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), it also demonstrates our city’s commitment to finding innovative ways to quickly deliver affordable units during our housing crisis,” said Portland Mayor, Ted Wheeler.

LEVER Architecture's project, Framework, has been awarded 6M from the city of Portland as a recipient of the City's "Fast Starts" Affordable Housing Program. The program aims at providing financial and city level assistance in the development and deployment of affordable housing projects that aim to deliver on both the means and methods of relieving the city's housing crisis.

French architects are increasingly ditching concrete and embracing timber

2017-10-31T14:26:00-04:00

Spurred by concerns over climate change and the negative impacts of concrete manufacturing, architects and developers in France are increasingly turning to wood for their office towers and apartment complexes. Concrete was praised through much of the 20th century for its flexibility, functionality, and relative affordability. [...] Today, however, wood is lauded for its smaller environmental footprint and the speed with which buildings can be assembled.

The world's tallest wood building opens to residents at University of British Columbia

2017-09-22T10:06:00-04:00

Completed last year, the wooden skyscraper opened its doors to 400 students at University of British Columbia (UBC) Campus in Vancouver. Designed by Acton Ostry Architects in collaboration with structural engineers Fast + Epp. The building is built of mass timber construction above one level of concrete and two concrete stair cores. The mass timber hybrid structure is 18 stories and 178 feet tall.

Courtesy of naturallywood.com

“The floor structure is comprised of 5-ply CLT panels supported on glue-laminated timber (glulam) columns on a 2.85 X 4.0 meter grid. This results in the CLT panels acting as a two-way slab diaphragm, which eliminates the need for load-carrying beams. To avoid a vertical load transfer through the CLT panels, a steel connector allows for a direct load transfer between the columns and also provides a bearing surface for the CLT panels”

Courtesy of naturallywood.com

Design and construction teams had to work hand in hand from the beginning of the design process...

The world's tallest wooden tower is being built in Norway

2017-08-31T12:24:00-04:00

With an expected completion date of March 2019, the 18-story, 80-meter-tall-plus building in Brumunddal, Norway known as the Mjøsa Tower will soon become the world's tallest wooden structure, a coveted title among those designers who favor wood over more traditional tall building materials. Designed by Voll Arkitekter, the Mjøsa Tower is on track to supersede the previous wooden record holder, the Brock Commons Student Housing building at the University of British Columbia, which topped out at a stately 53 meters in height.

Image: Metsä Wood / Voll Arkitekter

Wood has numerous advantages over oft-used concrete and steel: for one, the construction time can be cut approximately in half due to easy prefabrication and the overall lighter weight of the materials. Surprisingly, one of wood's advantages as a tall building material lies in its ability to withstand fires, at least when compared with the tendency of steel to melt down during an all-consuming blaze. As the site's general contr...

First mass timber high-rise building to be permitted in the US is coming to Portland

2017-06-08T18:33:00-04:00

Designed by LEVER Architecture, Framework Building aims at promoting sustainable building practices and economic opportunity for a sustainable urban-rural ecology.

To receive the permit the 12-story building has completed a series of fire, acoustic and structural tests which have proven that mass timber construction performs to fire and life safety requirements, in some cases even exceeding the current standards.

"The mixed-use project combines retail and public exhibition on the ground level, with five levels of office and 60-units of affordable housing. Framework’s commercial tenants will be B corporations—businesses certified to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. The housing component of the project accommodates residents earning less than 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI).

Framework is part of a mutually beneficial cycle between natural resources, the rural timber industries that rely on these resources, and the citi...

Researchers discover 'glue' that makes plant cell walls strong — foreseeing brighter future for wooden skyscrapers

2016-12-22T14:12:00-05:00

Molecules 10,000 times narrower than the width of a human hair could hold the key to making possible wooden skyscrapers and more energy-efficient paper production, according to research published today in the journal Nature Communications. The study, led by a father and son team at the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge, solves a long-standing mystery of how key sugars in cells bind to form strong, indigestible materials.

"But just as this could improve how easily materials can be broken down, the discovery may also help them create stronger materials, he says. There are already plans to build houses in the UK more sustainably using wood, and Paul Dupree is involved in the Centre for Natural Material Innovation at the University of Cambridge, which is looking at whether buildings as tall as skyscrapers could be built using modified wood."