A special thanks to our friends at McShan Lumber for sharing this story…
Since the recent completion of a 9 story wooden structure in London, plans for taller wooden structures are popping up around the globe. Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30 story wood skyscraper in Vancouver, BC. Also a 17 story building in Norway and 20 story building in
Austria that use wood as the main building material has been proposed. In an interview with CNN, Architect Green stated, “We think we can go higher than 30 stories. We stopped exploring wood around 100 years ago (when steel and concrete arrived on the scene). Now we’re looking at a whole new system using mass timber products”. Green goes on to say, “the real change came when we started thinking about climate change. Steel and concrete are great but not environmentally friendly”. Of course all of the statements by Mr. Green are familiar and logical to lumber people. The most remarkable part of the story is the further comments by the CNN writer. These statements should warm the heart of any lumberman (after he picks himself up from the floor) – “Cutting down trees to make buildings doesn’t immediately sound eco- friendly either, but if sourced from sustainably managed forests (like those in Europe and North America), it can be more environmentally sensitive… Wood buildings lock in carbon dioxide for the life cycle of a structure, while the manufacture of steel and concrete produces large amounts of CO2– the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate for every 10 kilos of cement created, six to nine kilos of CO2 are produced”. You can read the full article at www.cnn.com/2012/03/15/tech/eco-wood-skyscrapers/index.html. For further reading, you may be interested in the Canadian Wood Council’s recent paper “The Case for Tall Wood Buildings www.cwc.ca.
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