Washington – WoodWorks and Think Wood recently released Volume 2 of the Mass Timber Design Manual, a free interactive resource offering a comprehensive collection of up-to-date information on topics from mass timber construction and design best practices to case studies and information on sustainability and taller wood buildings.
Volume 2 of the manual features more than 30 pages of new content, including 10 new case studies of timber projects, expert Q+As, and technical resources. Topics include product overviews, mass timber construction management, creating efficient structural grids for a mass timber building, CLT diaphragms, tall mass timber fundamentals, and code requirements.
According to the report:
- Mass timber buildings are on the rise across the U.S., driven by market interest in their low-carbon, aesthetics, speed-of-construction and market-differentiation benefits.
- Expanding the use of mass timber in all types of buildings, from industrial and commercial to civic and multifamily, can play an important role in tackling the 21st-century challenges facing the built environment.
- A range of mass timber products are opening up even more possibilities, from newer innovations like CLT and DLT to tried and tested technologies such as NLT and glulam. Mass timber products combined with concrete, steel, and light-frame wood construction can deliver building solutions for virtually any occupancy type. They also lend well to modularized prefabrication and open flexible grid configurations.
- Mass timber performs when it comes to safety, thermal efficiency, acoustics, durability, moisture management and biophilic design. Rigorous testing has proven mass timber is fire-safe and offers natural fire resistance.
- When it comes to reducing a building’s environmental footprint, life cycle assessment and carbon accounting demonstrate mass timber’s benefits. Not only is sustainably harvested wood a low-carbon alternative to extracting energy-intensive materials, but timber buildings store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the structure, and even longer if the wood is then reclaimed and reused.
Funding for the manual was provided by the Softwood Lumber Board.
—
“At the end of 2021, there were nearly 600 mass timber buildings in the U.S. alone. That number is growing by the day,” said Jennifer Cover, WoodWorks president and CEO. “The carbon benefits of the projects we’ve supported account for 493 million metric tons of stored carbon and one billion metric tons of GHG emissions avoided.”
The 2022 Mass Timber Design Manual can be downloaded for free here.
