Popular Science: On a cloudy day in early October, the architect Andrew Waugh circles the base of a nondescript apartment tower in Shoreditch, a neighborhood in East London. Shoreditch suffered heavily during the blitz of World War II—“urban renewal, compliments of the Luftwaffe,” Waugh says—and then spent decades in neglected decay. Recently, though, the neighborhood has come roaring back. Nightclubs and tech start-ups arrived first on the promise of cheap rent, and residents followed. Along with them came architects, urban planners, and engineers, many of whom make a pilgrimage to the same tower that Waugh now circumambulates.
8 comments:
Considering that CLT has been around for around 20 years and all the benefits of using it, it's hard to believe that it's taken this long for it to start being more widely used. There doesn't seem to be any real downside, incredibly eco-friendly, comparable to steel and concrete in strength, and faster to assemble. What more could you ask for in a building material? It's also even more fire resistant than steel. The only downside seems to be building skyscrapers although it sounds like it won't be long before thats a possibility. What we should really be doing is demolishing steel, brick, and concrete buildings and replacing them with CLT structures. Maybe that's the real next step in the fight against climate change?
The TD land line is, "Why isn't it a two by four". In many situations there would be nothing stronger and more practical than a two by four. At the same time cross-laminated timber seems to be one hell of a material. 6" thick and the layers of glue, I can not imagine the strength of the lumber. It is funny to think that there are few lumber and lumber substitutes that are cheaper then steel. I mean, this is always something people keep in mind when budgeting a show. Generally it is a shame when people can not use something as structurally beneficial as steel because of money, I wonder if there is a place in this world for this material.
The article claims that this CLTL material is stronger and cheaper and more renewable than steel. I'm sure that all of those assertions are technically true, but the artical seems to fail to mention that construction trades are used to working with concrete and steel, and that a new building material and technique such as this would require specialized labor that is familiar with the process.
While I am all about using much more sustainable processes, I think there is something to be said about the jobs and trades that could be displaced by the widespread adoption of this new process.
This is also a (relatively) new material. The oldest building that are constructed with CLT are only about 15-25 years old. There is no long term study data as to its durability, weatherability, dimensional stability, etc.
I think we should look at this material for small (4-10 story) commercial construction, but we need to be more sure that we can trust this material before it becomes a major staple of the construciton industy.
We don't often need the strength and size of CLT in the entertainment industry, which is unfortunate because it would be a great field to test this material in.
I wonder why CLT has been around for so long, but not really recognized. I'm inclined to believe it has to do with the stigma around wood and how easy it is to burn. One counter argument for burning wood that might be a little more palpable, most fire doors are wooden! I can only imagine what it would be like to have buildings made out of CLT. It sounds like that would solve a lot of our green house problems, or at the very least make a dent in them.
As exciting as CTL seems, and while yes it is true that the world is currently producing a surplus of lumber, it could very quickly turn around to hurt us if we overuse yet another resource. On a side note, even though we are producing a surplus of lumber, we are loosing natural forest land where is counts, namely, on the edge of the Sahara desert. If CTL is cheaper than concrete and steal construction for a building of the same size and occupancy i would be interested to the see how different the industry needed to produce CTL is from what is currently in place in many places, and how much it would cost to implement in places that do not have surpluses of birch or other fast growing lumber.
CTL seems like a very cool building material and the environmentally friendly factor is also great. I do wonder though about the strain it would put on resources if it was adopted as a popular material. If it can be made with recycled wood and retain the same strength then this should definitely be used as a building material. I also wonder how flammable it is because that would severely hinder its ability to be used in large buildings.
Though there doesn't seem to be much of a downside to using CLT rather than wood, I feel that there must be some sort of reason that this was not chosen over other structural materials. And perhaps that reason is exactly what Frank was saying, that the complete replacement of wood would displace a lot of jobs. This I think is the largest downfall of moving to more sustainable practices is the fact that so many jobs will be lost. It is also very very expensive to integrate a completely new means of structural construction. I think that prior to integrating this and ruling out wood we should look more into the long term uses of this product before calling it better than wood.
I think the title of this article is a little bit misleading. Wood isnt really what they are talking about, nor is it able to be engineered with. What they are talking about is a very complicated highly manufactured engineered wood based product. I also would be interested to know the failure method of this new wood product. one of my favorite thing about steel is its bending characteristics. Also they make a big deal about how this product is flame resistant, but i would much rather have a flame proof product than just flame resistant.
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