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. 

2022 has already been an exciting year for the use of the highly sustainable material in architecture. Headliner projects in Oregon and Virginia have joined others in Europe and Canada on the growing list of mass timber designs that are slowly supplanting the use of more conventional (and often carbon-polluting) materials in the residential and office tower typologies.

"We're going to get better at building [mass timber] buildings, and we're going to understand them better," University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning professor Alex Trimmer told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "This means that we will be able to ask more of this particular construction typology, and we can ask more of it from an environmental standpoint."

In fact, a lot more. Mass timber may become one of the most important factors in meeting the 2.4 trillion square feet estimated to be required to meet housing demands internationally by the UN’s GlobalABC report last year.

"Mass timber is definitely one of the really, really important tools that architects have right now," Timmer added finally, likely speaking to its regenerative and carbon-sequestering qualities. "It's a no-brainer."