News in engineered wood products mass timber

Google, the global technology giant, has engaged Vancouver, British Columbia-based Michael Green Architecture to serve as the lead designer on their first ever mass-timber office in Sunnyvale, California. The five-story, 182,000 square-foot-facility is scheduled for completion in 2022.

Timber Age Systems Inc., a Durango, Colorado based company that specializes in making cross-laminated timber (CLT) for sustainable building projects, has announced its plans to expand its manufacturing capacity and develop a new facility after receiving a grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Recycling Resources Economic Opportunity Program.

The 39-story Sydney Tower, billed as the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower when it was first unveiled in 2020, has been approved. The Shop Architects and BVN’s $1 billion (A$) will be the new home of Atlassian, the Australian tech company. The tower adjoins Sydney’s Central Station and it is intended to be a linchpin of the state government’s planned technology precinct.

Metsä Wood and its partners have developed a hybrid sandwich wall element that they believe will renew offsite construction. The innovation combines concrete with Kerto LVL (laminated veneer lumber). The lighter weight of the hybrid sandwich wall elements proved to be a valuable benefit.

According to Patrick Crabbe, who oversees everything from pre-construction to execution for all of Bird Construction’s mass timber projects in Canada, supply chain difficulties have led to extended lead times on commodities such as steel I-joist and pre-engineered building components. These difficulties are creating new opportunities for mass timber products in the construction of low-rise commercial buildings in Canada.

La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia is now home to the mass timber student accommodation scheme created by Australian studio Jackson Clements Burrows. Two sweeping arcs providing accommodation for 642 students hug a central courtyard on the 18,000-square-metre site, which is the first to complete in a new masterplan for the university’s eastern residential precinct.

EMBT, the Barcelona-based studio, has revealed images of a mass-timber metro station which is currently under construction in the Centro Direzionale area of Naples, Italy. The Naples Underground Central Station is being built in a neighborhood designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange as part of a major upgrade to the city’s infrastructure.

The City of New Westminster, British Columbia has joined 20 other B.C. communities — along with the City of Vancouver, which has its own similar initiative — in participating in the province’s Tall Wood Initiative.

Södra, a forestry cooperative based in Växjö, Sweden, has announced that its complete offering of CLT panels for frame assembly with complementary products and services will now be available in the Danish market starting in September. This is the first step of Södra’s plan to expand their business into Europe.