October 13, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
Oregon
Nation’s largest ‘mass
timber’ building underway
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
HILLSBORO, Ore. —
As a crane lowered a “glu-
lam” beam and construction
workers on either end deftly
guided it into connection
with two upright wooden
columns, a tour group mem-
ber shook his head and said,
“It’s like Lincoln Logs.”
Kind of. Which may in
part explain some of the
attraction of builders and
designers to the potential
use of strong, precisely en-
gineered,
carbon-storing
wood beams, columns, wall
panels and floor decking.
As Chris Evans, a Swiner-
ton Builders project man-
ager put it, wood is the first
building material people use
to make the forts, homes
and hideouts of childhood.
These days, builders
and designers are joining
mill owners, university re-
searchers and policy mak-
ers in taking a fresh look at
advanced wood products,
“mass timbers” and what’s
come to be called “tall-
wood” design. Advocates
believe it can replace con-
crete and steel in mid- to
even high-rise buildings,
and provide an economic
jolt to rural Oregon in terms
of forest management and
mill jobs.
In Hillsboro, Evans and
Swinerton Builders are
overseeing
construction
of the largest known U.S.
building to date that uses
cross-laminated timber, or
CLT, for flooring, and glu-
lam posts and beams.
The Oregon headquarters
of First Tech Credit Union
will be five stories tall and
have 156,000 square feet
of office space. Swinerton
Builders is the general con-
tractor.
Another tall wood build-
ing planned for Portland,
called Framework, will be
12 stories tall and have five
floors of affordable housing,
That project was awarded a
$1.5 million federal design
competition grant to help
with seismic and fire testing
and certification.
Oregon is trying to jump
start the technology and po-
tentially revive its timber
industry.
CLT panels, made by
layering lumber in alternat-
ing directions and bonding
them with adhesive, can be
up to 65 feet long and 20 feet
wide. DR Johnson Lumber
Co., in Riddle, Ore., was the
first U.S. manufacturer cer-
tified to make CLT.
Meanwhile, Freres Lum-
ber Co., in Lyons, Ore., is
opening a milling facility
to make similar “mass ply-
wood panels” out of veneer.
Oregon State Universi-
ty’s forestry and engineer-
ing programs have part-
nered with the University of
Oregon’s architecture pro-
gram to form the TallWood
Design Institute on the OSU
campus.
About 50 people took
part in an Oct. 3 tour of
Portland-area projects or-
ganized by the Oregon For-
est Resources Institute, and
heard talks by architects,
builders and developers.
For now, speakers said,
mass timber construction is
more expensive than con-
crete and steel, but is much
quicker because of the way
pre-fabricated sections can
be fitted together.
Experts said the technol-
ogy will be “open sourced,”
meaning it will be available
for replication elsewhere,
which should speed market
expansion.
At the First Tech build-
ing construction site, ar-
chitect Scott Barton-Smith
said wood is an authentic
regional material in the Pa-
cific Northwest and “part of
the solution” when it comes
to carbon sequestration.
He also talked about the
warmth of wood products.
“The best reason to use
wood on a building like this
is because it’s beautiful,” he
said.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
A worker guides a glulam beam into place Oct. 3 during construction of the First Tech Credit
Union headquarters building in Hillsboro, Ore. The building, which will be five stories tall and
include 156,000 square feet of office space, is believed to be largest U.S. structure so far built
using advanced lumber products such as cross-laminated timbers (CLT) and glulam beams, posts
and flooring. Advocates believe such wood products can replace concrete and steel in modest
high-rises, and revive Oregon’s timber industry.
Organic farm wins
$26,500 for cow trespass
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
An Oregon dairy farm
whose cows escaped to tres-
pass onto a neighbor’s prop-
erty owes about $26,500 for
trampling and manure damage
to organic crops.
The incident occurred in
2014 but Simington Gardens,
an organic produce farm,
didn’t file a lawsuit against the
dairy, Rock Ridge Farms, until
last year.
According to court doc-
uments, the two farms tried
to resolve the problem out of
court but were unable to agree
on the amount of compensa-
tion.
The plaintiff alleged that
up to nine cows, as well as
several dairy workers who
later rounded them up, caused
roughly $55,000 in destroyed
property, lost profits and mit-
igation costs.
Organic farming regula-
tions required Simington Gar-
dens to leave the field where
cows defecated fallow for 120
days.
In its lawsuit, Simington
Gardens argued it was owed
double or triple that amount
under Oregon
laws intended
to discourage
damages caused
during trespass.
Rock Ridge
Farms is owned
Chuck
by
Chuck
Eggert
Eggert, an en-
trepreneur who
also founded Pacific Natural
Foods, which the Campbell
Soup Co. agreed to buy for
$700 million earlier this year.
The defendant argued
the lawsuit could have been
avoided, as Rock Ridge Farms
offered to pay “out-of-pock-
et” costs and provide its own
organic-certified property for
Simington Gardens to plant re-
placement crops.
The trespass by cows was
unintentional, so the organic
produce farm wasn’t entitled
to double or triple the amount
of damages, according to the
dairy.
After a four-day civil tri-
al, a 12-person jury found last
month that Rock Ridge Farms
had committed trespass and
awarded Simington Gardens
about $20,800 in lost profits,
$2,500 in property damage and
$3,200 in mitigation expenses.
ROP-40-2-1/102