The Race to Build The World’s Tallest Timber Skyscraper

Traditionally, building a skyscraper required concrete and steel as its primary materials. That is no longer the case. With the developement of a relatively new type of timber that is fire resistant, architects have already built structures taller than 20 storeys.
They say this is just the beginning as a global race is underway to erect taller and taller wooden buildings.
Timber, as an environmentally friendly building material, poses an unprecedented challenge to the dominance of concrete and steel, materials that are major emitters of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
The video features interviews with:
Oskar Norelius
Lead Architect of Sara Cultura Center and partner at White Arkitekter
Håkan Hyllengren
Business Development Director for Stockholm Wood City at Atrium
Ljungberg
Susanne Rudenstam
CEO, Swedish Wood Building Council
Marie Johansson
Senior Researcher, Research Insitute of Sweden
Olivia Thim,
The City of Växjö Municipality’s Former Business developer
Tobias Schauerte
Professor, Linnaeus University’s Engineering Department, Vaxjo
Ambrose Dodoo
Professor, Linnaeus University’s Department of Building Technology

[@emmanueladinyira956]

I know this whole drive to build tall buildings in timber is backed by excellent research from researchers like Professor Dodoo, whom I know personally. Very insightful video

[@billsmith5109]

Let’s drive out this discussion of structural steel melting as an important consideration in a structure fire. Steel has two characteristics that are important in fire. It expands as it heats, practically meaning elongates and bends. The other is it loses strength as it heats, so that by 1,100-1200 f, 650 C, about half the strength is gone. Neither characteristic is a good thing if you want your structure to remain standing. Melting point of steel is not an important characteristic in fire. Just as mass timber can use concept of char in its design there are specialized industries that insulate steel to reduce rate of heating in a structure fire. Another characteristic of steel is that it conducts heat much better than wood. Remember that char has no meaningful strength. So that exposed steel fasteners can conduct high temperature into wood that it is fastening, charring the adjacent wood. This is why lightweight lumber trusses utilizing gang plate nails can collapse in ten or fifteen minutes in fire. The plate acts a heat sink, the punched and bent over tabs or nails conduct the heat into the wood, it chars, and connection fails. A few trusses fail, and you get progressive collapse. So how do we prevent steel fasteners from doing the same in a mass timber high-rise? We cover the fasteners with wood, or in the soundproofing aerated concrete on top of floor members.