3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2018
Oregon seeks to become U.S. mass timber hub
Hopes are still
high for wood
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
PORTLAND — Timm
Locke relishes a chance to
drive around Portland and
showcase the latest commer-
cial buildings made with mass
timber, a construction mate-
rial that uses wood beams and
panels instead of concrete and
steel.
First stop: Albina Yard,
a four-story office building
that opened in 2016 featuring
cross-laminated timber panels
from D.R. Johnson, a lumber
company south of Roseburg.
Every piece of cross-lam-
inated timber — or CLT for
short — is prefabricated,
designed for a specific part of
the building, said Locke, direc-
tor of forest products at the
Oregon Forest Resources Insti-
tute. That means buildings go
up faster, with fewer workers.
Wood is also environmen-
tally superior to steel and con-
crete, Locke said, because it
sequesters carbon and takes
less energy to produce.
“There are so many ben-
efits, it doesn’t matter which
one you choose to start with,”
Locke said.
First developed in Europe,
mass timber is now catching
on in the U.S., and Oregon is
working to position itself as
the industry hub, kick-start-
ing rural economies that have
traditionally relied on for-
est products. In August, Ore-
gon became the first state to
approve language in its build-
ing codes allowing for wood-
framed buildings up to 18 sto-
ries tall.
Albina Yard was the first
building to use Oregon-made
CLT as a structural element.
Other examples of mass tim-
ber construction in Portland
include Carbon 12, an eight-
story condominium build-
ing on Northeast Fremont
Street. Catty-corner to it across
the street is One North, an
85,540-square-foot business
complex.
First Tech Federal Credit
Union also opened its new
headquarters in neighboring
Hillsboro last June. At 156,000
square feet, it is the largest
mass timber building in the
nation.
Locke, who was hired by
the institute in 2015 to help
develop markets and supply
chain for mass timber, said he
believes momentum will only
increase as the projects gain
wider recognition.
“People like wood. It’s a
nice material,” Locke said.
“It has a great environmental
story, and a great aesthetic.”
Timber Innovation Act
Mass timber refers to sev-
eral construction materi-
als made of wood, including
CLT, glue laminated beams,
laminated veneer and mass
plywood.
CLT, a prominent example,
has been described as “ply-
wood on steroids.” It is made
by gluing planks of wood in
perpendicular layers, creating
thick panels that can be used
for walls and floors.
The first CLT buildings
were constructed in 1993-95
in Germany and Switzerland,
and the majority of production
remains in Europe. The first
U.S. commercial CLT build-
ing was completed in 2011
in Whitefish, Montana. D.R.
Johnson became the first U.S.
company certified by APA —
The Engineered Wood Asso-
ciation — to make structural
CLT panels in 2015.
A study by Grand View
Research, a market research
George Plaven/Capital Press
Timm Locke, director of forest products for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, explains the benefits of mass timber
while touring a display at the World Forestry Center in Portland.
company in San Francisco,
anticipates the global CLT mar-
ket will be worth more than $2
billion by 2025, tied to demand
for “green” homes.
The U.S. Senate in June
added provisions to its ver-
sion of the 2018 Farm Bill
that would establish a federal
research program for mass tim-
ber. Originally known as the
Timber Innovation Act, the bill
was sponsored by U.S. Sen.
Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.,
and co-sponsored by 19 other
senators, including Republi-
cans and Democrats from Ore-
gon, Idaho, Washington state,
Montana, Minnesota, Maine
and Mississippi.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.,
said he wants to see Oregon
become the national leader in
mass timber, an industry with
“enormous potential.”
“We think about the fact
that we build these medium
high-rise buildings out of con-
crete and steel,” Merkley said.
“If we can open that market
effectively to mass timber, then
it could be huge.”
off the road for one year.
CLT was initially devel-
oped to create a high-end
use for lumber. Locke said it
could also provide a market
for small-diameter trees and
the wildfire fuels building up in
western forests.
Others, however, have tem-
pered expectations. According
to University of Washington
and Washington State Univer-
sity researchers, the predicted
demand for softwood lumber
to manufacture CLT panels is
still less than 1 percent of the
annual Pacific Northwest tim-
ber harvest, making it a bou-
tique industry at best.
Doug Heiken, conservation
and restoration coordinator for
the environmental group Ore-
gon Wild, described CLT as
‘People like wood. It’s
a nice material. It has a
great environmental story,
and a great aesthetic.’
Benefits, skepticism
Locke describes himself
as a “wood guy.” Before join-
ing the institute, he ran a mar-
keting agency, Pipeline Public
Relations, in Portland, serv-
ing clients in the construction
industry.
Locke is the first director
of forest products for the insti-
tute, a position created in 2015
and partially funded by a two-
year, $250,000 Wood Innova-
tion Grant from the U.S. Forest
Service. He said the job was a
perfect fit.
“They wanted to promote
Oregon wood products into
commercial
construction,”
Locke said. “That has always
made sense to me.”
First, Locke said, there are
cost savings on construction
and installation with mass tim-
ber. He explained how each
floor panel at Albina Yard
was installed in three hours,
whereas with steel and con-
crete it would have taken twice
as big a crew up to a week to
do the job.
Then there is the environ-
mental element. Production
of CLT emits 26 percent less
greenhouse gases than making
steel, and 50 percent less than
concrete. Carbon 12, the Port-
land condo building, also stores
up to 577 metric tons of carbon
dioxide in the wood — equiva-
lent to taking roughly 105 cars
tute, a collaborative research
program of the University of
Oregon College of Design and
Oregon State University’s Col-
lege of Forestry and College of
Engineering.
Iain Macdonald, associ-
ate director of the institute,
said 20 to 30 professors are
working in research and prod-
uct development, studying fire
performance, building phys-
ics, environmental impact and
economics.
“Urbanization is going to
drive a huge demand for hous-
ing around the world,” Mac-
donald said. “Our role is to do
applied research on this, to put
together educational programs
for stakeholders like architects,
structural engineers and con-
struction companies.”
Timm Locke,
director of forest products
for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute
a side product of the timber
industry that would not change
its overall carbon footprint.
He said there is no guarantee
wood for mass timber would
come from sustainable forestry
practices, and not industrial
clear-cuts.
“Mass timber isn’t really that
different from any other timber
in that way,” Heiken said.
Building codes
The main limiting factor,
Locke said, are the interna-
tional building codes, which
are slowly being adapted to
catch up to tall wood buildings.
In April, the International
Code Council moved to update
codes allowing for wood build-
ings up to 18 stories, although
the proposed changes would
not be adopted until 2021 at the
earliest.
Oregon took the extraordi-
nary step in August of adopting
the recommendations under its
Statewide Alternate Method —
the first state to do so. Locke
said mass timber has passed
every required test and is prov-
ing to be just as safe as con-
crete or steel.
Such tests are conducted
at the TallWood Design Insti-
Macdonald acknowledged
fears about mass timber, espe-
cially regarding fire safety. Fire
tests involve roasting panels
in a furnace at 1,832 degrees
Fahrenheit for up to two hours,
and Macdonald said the results
so far are promising.
While the surface does char,
Macdonald said the interior of
the panel remains insulated
from the heat. He compared it
to throwing a whole log onto a
campfire, versus small pieces
of kindling.
William Silva, preconstruc-
tion manager for Swinerton
Builders — the Portland com-
pany that built the First Tech’s
Hillsboro headquarters — said
that as product testing and
building codes come together
fellow builders should get over
their fears.
“It’s become more than just
a progressive concept,” Silva
said. “I see a lot of develop-
ers looking at this as a value
proposition.”
lege of Forestry in Corvallis,
work is underway on the new
Oregon Forest Science Com-
plex that will house the College
of Forestry, TallWood Design
Institute and replace Peavy
Hall on campus.
The project is supposed
to be a showcase building for
the materials, but was ham-
pered earlier this year by a
costly and potentially danger-
ous setback. On March 14, two
of seven layers in a third-story
CLT panel measuring 30 feet
long by 4 feet wide, weighing
a half-ton, delaminated and fell
14 feet onto the second floor
below. Panels for Peavy Hall
were manufactured by D.R.
Johnson.
Nobody was hurt, but the
incident did bring construction
to a halt while officials investi-
gated what went wrong. Eval-
uations were conducted by
the general contractor, Ander-
sen Construction, as well as
D.R. Johnson and APA — The
Engineered Wood Associa-
tion. Oregon State also hired
KPFF Consulting Engineers
of Portland as an independent
consultant.
They determined D.R.
Johnson employees erred
when they preheated lumber in
stacks outside during a period
of cold weather before gluing
them together into CLT. This
caused premature curing of the
adhesive, weakening the bond.
Valerie Johnson, president
of D.R. Johnson Wood Innova-
tions, said the incident was the
product of a “well-intentioned,
but unfortunate” change in the
manufacturing process. She
added the company has added
quality control measures, and
built a climate-controlled glue
layup room in its facility to
ensure delamination does not
happen again.
“We are confident we have
rectified the problem perma-
nently and have an even better
production process as a result,”
Johnson said.
Andersen
Construction
authorized D.R. Johnson to
resume making panels for
Peavy Hall, and construction
resumed in July.
In its project specifications,
Oregon State stipulates that
F irst
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Recovery Rally and Fun Run/Walk
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Rural prosperity
Set in the forested canyon
near Lyons, Freres Lumber Co.
has pioneered a new form of
mass timber to sustain its busi-
ness and 470 employees.
The company, founded in
1922, debuted its new mass
plywood factory in December
2017, a sparkling $40 million,
four-acre facility that manufac-
tures panels using veneer lum-
ber up to 12 feet wide, 48 feet
long and 24 inches thick.
Tyler Freres, co-owner and
vice president of sales, said the
company received patents for
its mass plywood panels earlier
this year. He believes mass ply-
wood is a more efficient prod-
uct than CLT, using 20 percent
less wood while holding up in
every facet of construction.
“This is a truly unique
facility,” Freres said. “We had
to design all the processes
ourselves.”
Freres, who lives in nearby
Stayton, said the prosperity of
local schools and communities
is tied to the success of the tim-
ber industry. Mass timber can
be a lifeline, he said, though it
will require a more productive
approach to thinning federal
forests to boost volume.
In the 1970s, Oregon’s tim-
ber harvest totaled more than 8
million board-feet, according
to the state Office of Economic
Analysis. Today, the timber
harvest has dropped by more
than half that amount, and log-
ging on federal lands is down
nearly 90 percent.
“It’s been an absolute disas-
ter, losing timber,” Freres said.
Freres said mass plywood
will be key to supporting his
family’s business for another
100 years. He said the com-
pany receives many inqui-
ries from builders interested in
mass plywood.
“The potential is almost
limitless,” he said.
WANTED
Peavy Hall
Not everything has gone
smoothly for mass timber
development in Oregon.
Just outside Macdonald’s
office at the Oregon State Col-
CLT components for Peavy
must be manufactured within
300 miles of Corvallis. D.R.
Johnson is the only certified
CLT fabricator that meets the
requirement.
Oregon State spokes-
man Steve Clark said engi-
neers are still determining how
many panels already installed
at the complex may need to
be replaced. The project is
divided into three zones, with
Zone 3 needing 45 of 71 panels
replaced. Analyses are not yet
competed for Zones 1 and 2.
“Ultimately there is some
expense and delay,” Clark said.
The 95,000-square-foot com-
plex is now expected to open
by January 2020. The total cost
is now $79 million, of which
$30 million comes from state
bonds, $38 million in dona-
tions and $11 million in uni-
versity funding.
Despite the problem, sup-
porters of CLT do not appear
to be fazed. Clark said the uni-
versity remains “very commit-
ted and confident” in the future
of CLT. Locke described it as a
“blip” in the process. Macdon-
ald said it was an anomaly.
“We really have not heard
about this happening on a CLT
project around the world,”
Macdonald said. “It’s good
that this deviation in the man-
ufacturing process was caught.
We’re not concerned about the
long-term impact.”
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