Wood can actually resist fires more than other building materials such as steel. Yes it does burn, but it also doesn't lose it's structural integrity when heated:
Laminated wood basically doesn't combust, so the fire hazard is comparable to most modern construction materials. Also, the way it's processed makes it extremely structurally sound.
Excuse me, but you were succesfully made to swallow the coolaid.
No construction technique out there can make wood a safe construction material, no way, and no how.
The wood still burns no matter how much fire retardant you soak in it, and it will inevitable rot, warp, and slip off fasteners.
The vodoo cult of "wooden skyscrapers" is bizarre, and the way they slip past building regulations is even more.
In BC, the wood lobby effectively managed to undo a fire safety testing for building materials, and rewrite a big part of fire code to make wooden skyscrapers possible.
In many situations, you are right. For instance, the five-over-ones being built in basically every city in the US exist because of a regulation loophole for building wooden structures (that constructing a fireproof barrier between two wooden structures allows you to build large, multi-story apartments with it). They are infamous for burning down during construction because they don't have sprinkler systems yet: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri...
I think the "tech tree" of wood products has been around for hundreds of years. It's only been the last few decades where we have developed synthetic materials that were strong AND light. I would say carbon fiber and other composites have really only come into their element maybe since the 80's so with cost-insensitive projects like military jets.
Maybe compared to other wood. It is one step above cardboard.
Why are you even bringing up carbon fiber?
The above post was saying we can't create anything better than wood based on a title of a skyscraper being made of wood. The building isn't actually a skyscraper, it is actually made of wood, concrete and steel, and humanity isn't "struggling" to come up with better materials than wood. Wood is used because it has already been made.
Airplanes, cars and boats aren't made out of balsa wood. They are made out of aluminum, steel and polymers. I have no idea how you hallucinated a reason to bring up carbon fiber.
A single normal building made using more wood than normal does not mean anyone is 'struggling to come up with better materials than nature'. The above post is nonsense.
Also if you look up specific strength you can see that balsa wood stacks up terribly compared to modern polymers and alloys.
Life builds things molecule by molecule, sometimes atom by atom. It's very humbling to think about. We are a long, long way from being able to replicate that in manufacturing.
Leather is strong, durable, water- and fire-resistant. For many applications, we don't have a better alternative.
Wool clothing stays warm when wet, and has antiseptic properties, keeping it fresh for longer.
Sure, for many applications, we have better alternatives, but often we just don't. Or they are not cost-effective, which to me is the same - we have something just-as-good, but harder to make.
Another one is down for down jackets etc. Synthetic has its upsides, but we still can't make anything as warm, compact and light as down jackets.
Regarding leather, repairability is superior to most synthetic options too. You can literally sand it down and dye it and smooth it out again after it wears.
In this case, literally is there for a reason, albeit, imprecisely. It implies you can actually get sandpaper at the hardware store and use that to physically sand leather down like one sands wood. Rather that some specialty tool or process.
And until we start killing cows and discarding the carcass just for the leather, I can't imagine the processing is any worse than synthetic, usually petroleum based substitutes.
A couple of years ago a fairly large, multi-storey apartment building was put up in my town. It was constructed entirely of wood. While the roof was being finished, a worker who was putting in some overtime on a sunday accidentally started a small fire which quickly got out of control. It ended up taking the entire building out, costing millions of dollars, but thankfully no lives.
Wood is great, but it does have downsides. I wouldn't like to see a real-life sequel to The Towering Inferno.
Was it balloon timbered with plywood walls? I've seen those popping up quickly, and they look very flammable, with thin support frames and walls, and a high surface area to volume ratio.
The wooden building in this article looks different, with much thicker wooden posts and flooring. The article said a test structure lasted four hours at 1000C temperature flames.
England just went through an unfortunate lesson in approved materials being used in apartment buildings that in fact were flammable (cladding.) I think they had 2 major fires as a result.
Hopefully this isn't a repeat of that, but it sounds similar.
Note the wikipedia article says it did not comply, but I've read other articles that said it did:
We had the same exact thing happen in Houston. The lot it sat on is now a big eye sore since, I assume, the owners of the building and insurance companies are probably still duking it out in court.
I don't want to assume that a wooden building under construction would be less safe than multiple conventional buildings. Grenfell was a particular error in cladding choices, but still. Remember https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fire-breaks-out-dubai-sky...
All buildings should be built with metal studs like US commercial spaces are required to. Lighter construction mass, doesn't burn, and doesn't get termites.
> What’s more, its material saved over 2,400 metric tons of carbon emissions.
This is not true, part of that is a carbon sink
"That stores an impressive 1,753 metric tons of carbon dioxide and avoids production of 679"
It houses 400 people. The average person uses ~17 tonnes per year. The inhabitants using 6800 tonnes per year.
People who live in units uses far less carbon than people who don't. So we don't want to save on carbon emissions making units, it's not a lot comparatively. We want to maximise on people living in units.
We need to keep the prices down, make it liveable and make planning permissions easier. This is great for rich students, but we need all options, including tall concrete buildings.
I was hoping for some more information on the engineering behind these wooden structures. Primarily, how do they construct wooden columns and beams that are strong enough to bear the load.
Turns out that a wooden beam of the same dimensions as a steel beam tends to be safer in fires. Steel has a tendency to suddenly collapse, whereas with wood you've pretty much got a guaranteed minimum time until beams start burning through.
Wood cracking turns out to not be much of an issue either because most of the cracking happens before installation: you can just not use the beams with the worst cracks. Even if beams do crack they do so lengthwise which doesn't affect their structural support much if at all.
Steel is better in a lot of ways than wood, but simultaneously wood is better than steel in a lot of ways as well.
I was a little surprised to see claims about being the worlds tallest and worlds first without any mention of Japanese architecture. There are some very tall wooden pagodas and structures in Japan that are over 1000 years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji
42 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 83.2 ms ] threadhttps://youtu.be/G-J86Ka9MkQ
It does, and by a lot. This is why wooden houses collapse during fires, and bury people trapped in them in a fiery grave.
No construction technique out there can make wood a safe construction material, no way, and no how.
The wood still burns no matter how much fire retardant you soak in it, and it will inevitable rot, warp, and slip off fasteners.
The vodoo cult of "wooden skyscrapers" is bizarre, and the way they slip past building regulations is even more.
In BC, the wood lobby effectively managed to undo a fire safety testing for building materials, and rewrite a big part of fire code to make wooden skyscrapers possible.
Cross-laminated timber has a "char layer" that keeps the other layers from burning through, and is even known for withstanding higher temperatures than steel: https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/crosslam-timber-...
Lumber, leather, wool...
Wood isn't the best material, it is the cheapest, because it is already made and just waiting to be harvested.
Took us a long time to come up with a good carbon fiber tech tree.
> Took us a long time to come up with a good carbon fiber tech tree.
I don't know what this is supposed to mean
> carbon fiber
I think the "tech tree" of wood products has been around for hundreds of years. It's only been the last few decades where we have developed synthetic materials that were strong AND light. I would say carbon fiber and other composites have really only come into their element maybe since the 80's so with cost-insensitive projects like military jets.
Maybe compared to other wood. It is one step above cardboard.
Why are you even bringing up carbon fiber?
The above post was saying we can't create anything better than wood based on a title of a skyscraper being made of wood. The building isn't actually a skyscraper, it is actually made of wood, concrete and steel, and humanity isn't "struggling" to come up with better materials than wood. Wood is used because it has already been made.
Airplanes, cars and boats aren't made out of balsa wood. They are made out of aluminum, steel and polymers. I have no idea how you hallucinated a reason to bring up carbon fiber.
A single normal building made using more wood than normal does not mean anyone is 'struggling to come up with better materials than nature'. The above post is nonsense.
Also if you look up specific strength you can see that balsa wood stacks up terribly compared to modern polymers and alloys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_strength
How is wool great? It maybe somewhat warm but it's itchy, and prone to issues with water. Thinsulate is often superior.
Wool clothing stays warm when wet, and has antiseptic properties, keeping it fresh for longer.
Sure, for many applications, we have better alternatives, but often we just don't. Or they are not cost-effective, which to me is the same - we have something just-as-good, but harder to make.
Another one is down for down jackets etc. Synthetic has its upsides, but we still can't make anything as warm, compact and light as down jackets.
Nit: "Literally" is an unnecessary word in most circumstances.
And until we start killing cows and discarding the carcass just for the leather, I can't imagine the processing is any worse than synthetic, usually petroleum based substitutes.
Leather fades when exposed to sunlight. Leathers aren't waterproof without treatment.
Wool shrinks when it gets wet.
Wood is great, but it does have downsides. I wouldn't like to see a real-life sequel to The Towering Inferno.
The wooden building in this article looks different, with much thicker wooden posts and flooring. The article said a test structure lasted four hours at 1000C temperature flames.
Hopefully this isn't a repeat of that, but it sounds similar.
Note the wikipedia article says it did not comply, but I've read other articles that said it did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
My understanding is much of the fire rating comes from interior materials that protect the wood from fire.
I don't want to assume that a wooden building under construction would be less safe than multiple conventional buildings. Grenfell was a particular error in cladding choices, but still. Remember https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fire-breaks-out-dubai-sky...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Ddai-ji
This is not true, part of that is a carbon sink
"That stores an impressive 1,753 metric tons of carbon dioxide and avoids production of 679"
It houses 400 people. The average person uses ~17 tonnes per year. The inhabitants using 6800 tonnes per year.
People who live in units uses far less carbon than people who don't. So we don't want to save on carbon emissions making units, it's not a lot comparatively. We want to maximise on people living in units.
We need to keep the prices down, make it liveable and make planning permissions easier. This is great for rich students, but we need all options, including tall concrete buildings.
Other problems:
- Fires
- Humidity management: wood cracks if too dry, changes shape with humidity levels, and fails if too high
- Variance in strength
I don't think they thought this through. Steel is better. If I hear next "let's make skyscrapers out of rice paper," I'm going to think "The Onion."
Wood cracking turns out to not be much of an issue either because most of the cracking happens before installation: you can just not use the beams with the worst cracks. Even if beams do crack they do so lengthwise which doesn't affect their structural support much if at all.
Steel is better in a lot of ways than wood, but simultaneously wood is better than steel in a lot of ways as well.