MASS TIMBER WAREHOUSE
Often omitted from conversations about sustainability in architecture, industrial structures nonetheless account for a significant proportion of the construction industry’s carbon footprint. Conventional construction with concrete and steel pervades in the anonymous design of warehouses, data centers, and factories, but as industrial companies become more sensitive to issues of sustainability, there is an increasing interest to move toward less CO2 intensive methods.
Supported by a grant from the Softwood Lumber Board, atelierjones, DCI, and Foushée developed designs for mass timber and hybrid mass timber warehouses that can help industrial companies lower their carbon footprint.
Working against a baseline concrete tilt-up design for a new warehouse at Alaska Copper & Brass, the team developed a matrix of alternative structural systems which introduced increasing amount of mass timber into the building. Identifying certain permutations that brought particular cost, constructability, and structural benefits, these were further developed and priced.
Beyond a vastly reduced carbon footprint, advantages to mass timber and hybrid warehouses compared to concrete include reduced foundations, simplified connections, and greater longevity. During construction, the need for a construction crane is eliminated, crews are smaller, and construction is faster, leveraging mass timber’s prefabrication capabilities.
Although mass timber still represents a first-cost premium against traditional tilt-up construction, shifting corporate priorities mean that mass timber is likely to play an increasing role in the decarbonization of our industrial built environment.
COLLABORATORS
Contractor: Fousheé
Client: Alaska Copper & Brass Company
Structural Engineering: DCI Engineers
Supported by a 2022 grant from the Softwood Lumber Board
2022-2023
Renton, WA
atelierjones: Susan Jones, Matt Catrow, Meghan Doring, Eleanor Lewis
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