This comment on the article is more interesting than the article itself IMHO
<a href="http://disq.us/p/24slwwt" rel="nofollow">http://disq.us/p/24slwwt</a>
Here in San Francisco, CLT won't be legal for buildings over six floors until about 2023 because of dumb policies. California uses the International Building Code as its base building code and then modifies it based on particular laws we have here. This modification & ratification process takes about two years. Then San Francisco does the same thing, adding another two to three years (because surely _our_ engineers are better than a consortium of the world's best structural engineers...)<p>The 2018 International Building Code provides codes for tall CLT structures, which won't get adopted in the CA code until late 2020, which won't get adopted in the SF code until late 2022 or 2023. At that point, developers can start applying for permits for CLT buildings, which takes about four to five years. Then add two years of construction.<p>So SF won't see CLT structures over six floors until about 2030. Makes you realize how unseriously we're taking climate change when the only carbon-negative structural building material in existence won't exist here for another decade.
My house has some LSL (Laminated Strand Lumber) beams which, like CLT, are engineered, but are built up from wood strands of and a lot of glue instead of from boards like CLT. As a result, they can be made from the remainder products of milling lumber.<p>They can even be made from rapidly harvestable plans like bamboo:<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950061815001117" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095006181...</a><p>This company appears to be making them:<p><a href="https://www.moso.eu/en/products/bamboo-beam-panel-veneer/bamboo-beams" rel="nofollow">https://www.moso.eu/en/products/bamboo-beam-panel-veneer/bam...</a>
I can't believe nothing in this article, nor in the articles linked from this article, actually says what CLT is.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-laminated_timber" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-laminated_timber</a>
Well this is timely. In case anyone else is from Brisbane, Australia - we're home to the world's largest CLT building: 25 King St.<p>It's open to the public this weekend as part of BNE Open House: <a href="https://brisbaneopenhouse.com.au/building/25-king-street/" rel="nofollow">https://brisbaneopenhouse.com.au/building/25-king-street/</a>.<p>There's also a talk this evening: <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/brisbane-open-house-tall-timber-buildings-taking-on-climate-change-tickets-70864384281" rel="nofollow">https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/brisbane-open-house-tall-tim...</a>.
99pi episode "Built on Sand" talks about mass timber aka CLT: <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand/" rel="nofollow">https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand/</a>
I'm looking for a model of the carbon emissions of a concrete house vs a mostly timber house.<p>That is, a program writen in code or text with parameters such as : square meters, number of floors, wood species, distance travelled.<p>It looks like open source carbon models are almost unheard of yet.
Since this is basically plywood++, does it have similar failure modes? Like what happens when there's a leaky tub frequently wetting a structural piece of CLT?
I can see CLT replacing steel, and possibly CMUs, but concrete in general?<p>- It can't be poured into arbitrary shapes.<p>- Much lower acoustic isolation
See also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_wood" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_wood</a>