What happens to the performance of a built environment when we integrate multiple materials into building systems? How do these systems affect constructability, embodied energy, durability, and costs? These are some of the questions we’re seeking to answer—because when it comes to performance, a building is more than the sum of its parts.
The first step to understanding the regenerative potential of mass timber involves assessing the lumber supply chain and forestry best management practices. This paper explores these topics, beginning with an overview of the carbon cycle of wood products and the role designers play in protecting the earth’s resources through material selection. While sourcing sustainable mass... Read more »
The expanding world of mass timber projects provides stunning examples of built work and offers fertile ground for design innovation. Our clients and partners are eager to work with us on exploring what mass timber can offer. Getting from the initial excitement of a mass timber project proposal to the completed project requires many decisions... Read more »
Lab building embodied carbon is significant, due to intensive structure, finishes, and MEP systems. Recent projects are experimenting with designs uncommon to labs: CLT structure, wood cladding, demountable partitions. But no resource collects these into a common framework for evaluating their carbon benefits. Low Carbon Labs evaluates (3) choices for (14) different building systems within... Read more »
Robotics, mass timber, and parametric design are all key technologies that are underutilized in construction. To fully take advantage of these new technologies requires a rethinking of the entire process from design to construction. The Greenbuild Pavilion represents a new construction workflow, in which a digital parametric model is communicated directly to a robot fabricator.... Read more »
This project proposed to develop the next generation of net carbon negative, low embodied energy wood composite structural elements. The interest in mass timber construction is what brought a resource librarian and two project designers together to work on this project. During the first phase, the project team created composite fibers composed of a bio-based... Read more »
Shadow boxes are commonly used in curtain wall construction, but can be problematic if not designed and detailed correctly and appropriately for the climate. Much has been written about shadow box design, both successes and failures, but there is no consensus about how, or if, the cavity should be vented. This article presents a literature review about... Read more »
This article discusses methods for integrating parametric design methods with building performance analysis procedures, suitable for whole building design. In this research, an ideal framework was developed and tested using existing software applications, including Building Information Modeling (BIM), non-BIM, parametric design and building performance analysis applications. Current software programs that can integrate some form of building performance simulation with... Read more »
Article Published: Citation: Matthew Timmers, Andrew Tsay Jacobs, Concrete apartment tower in Los Angeles reimagined in mass timber, Engineering Structures, Available online 6 December 2017, ISSN 0141-0296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2017.11.047. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141029617305497) Abstract: This study explores the seismic performance advantages and disadvantages of mass timber construction over reinforced concrete construction for high-rise buildings in high seismic regions. In... Read more »
From Curbed’s article, “Proposed 80-story wooden skyscraper may be a preview of tall timber future”: “In a city lined with pathbreaking towers and skyscrapers, the River Beech project, if it comes to fruition, may earn its own chapter in the history of Chicago architectural marvels. That’s because this proposed 80-story tower, a joint research project between Cambridge... Read more »
To learn more about how mass-timber construction will scale up, as well as to define what’s currently included in the purview of mass-timber construction for low-, mid- and high-rise projects, Construction Dive spoke with Andrew Tsay Jacobs, director of the Building Technology Lab at Perkins+Will and a member of the International Code Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Tall... Read more »
The 2017 Spring Perkins+Will Innovation Incubator project proposed to develop the next generation of net carbon negative, low embodied energy wood composite structural elements. The team created composite fibers composed of a bio-based thermosetting plastic and fiber additives (carbon, aramid, and two types of wood fiber), and evaluated their sustainability and began the process of... Read more »
