April CSI Flint Hills CEU Tall Timber

MASS TIMBER.

Timber is hardly a new material. Recent innovations have allowed for new approaches to building 

with timber, and over the past decade we have seen timber buildings grow taller and taller. It 

seems that we are in a timber renaissance of sorts, with a number of new approaches to mid-rise and 

potentially high-rise buildings.

The environmental benefit of timber-structured buildings is significant. Timber requires much less 

energy to harvest, transport, and process, and so releases less carbon, than either steel or 

concrete. In addition, harvested timber stores carbon for the lifetime of the building, and has 

some insulative value. Timber is actually highly resilient, as well. Timber buildings can stand for 

centuries; pound for pound it ranks with both steel and concrete in structural strength. Timber 

performs well in seismic and other eccentric loading, and outperforms concrete in some ways in 

fires.

Performance aside, mass timber is a marvelous material, and we are at the forefront of its 

inception as a standard large building system. Wood is a warm material aesthetically. It is very 

versatile, able to replace steel, composite, precast, or sitecast concrete elements (tectonic or 

panels). Considering heavy timber’s fire protection properties, it is possible to leave timber 

exposed in many types of spaces and buildings.

This session will be an overview of where we are now in terms of tall timber construction. It will 

closely examine some recent tall timber exemplars, discuss the methods architects, contractors, 

subs, and manufacturers use, and explore opportunities for mass and tall timber here in the center 

of the country.