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Wood, or more specifically, large wooden buildings, may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of proptech. However, like any algorithm, a large number of timber projects are increasingly being used as technical solutions in the construction industry, especially in low- and medium-rise buildings.

Henry D'Esposito, head of construction research at the global real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle, said: "I will definitely put a lot of wood under the umbrella of construction technology. I think all construction technology is applicable to proptech." "If you consider what proptech is, or at least construction technology, you can think of more traditional things, such as 3D scanners or drones. This is our current view of consumer technology. But you build something Any innovation in a thing or the way of creating something is technology, just as the manufacturing process is technology."

D'Esposito said that although it currently accounts for only a small portion of American buildings, large amounts of wood are becoming a substitute for steel and concrete in projects up to 18 floors. "In New York [City] and across the country, its new projects are far less than 1%," he said. "Although, from a national perspective, it has grown faster than the overall construction. In the past ten years, the number of large wooden buildings has been increasing."

Two reasons for this growth are the sustainability and aesthetics of the large amount of wood. 

"For developers, owners and end users, the sustainability story behind wood is compelling," D'Esposito said. "If you use the right products and build carefully, you can build some buildings that have a much higher total carbon content compared to concrete or steel-based buildings. So there are environmental and sustainable development benefits."

One of the main reasons for the sustainability impact of wooden construction is that it is a renewable resource containing atmospheric carbon. Compared with alternatives such as concrete and steel, the use of bulk wood as the main structural system of the building achieves the lowest embodied carbon.

"It is also a prefabricated material," said Nina Mahjoub, the head of Holmes in Los Angeles and structural engineer, Holmes is an international engineering company established in New Zealand that provides structural and fire protection consulting services. "We can improve efficiency by doing a lot of things off-site. We can save construction schedule, which helps cost-effectiveness. And the risk on site is less."

Eric Law, the former senior director of innovation at San Francisco-based construction company Swinerton, is now working on the other end of the timber sustainability equation as the co-founder and CEO of Urban Machine. Start-ups that have exited the stealth mode develop technologies to recycle wood from buildings. While in Swinerton, Law researched construction waste. 

"We found a huge amount of construction waste," he said. "Actually, it is difficult for us to estimate how much waste will be generated on the site. I began to realize that a lot of waste comes from concrete projects, where wood is in all forms [or molding] and is a single project use that enters the landfill. In addition, we There are many residential buildings around the area where I live, and you are watching the trash bins being transported one by one to the wood landfill."

City Machine plans to work with manufacturing facilities to “build large planks and glue them together, for example, an 8-foot-wide, 60-foot-long piping plate,” Law said. "The manufacturer took the board and processed it with CNC [computer network control] equipment to insert pipe penetrations and bolt patterns, and placed any hangers needed in its store."

"When it enters the scene, all they have to do is to assemble it like Lego bricks," Lao added. "This is an excellent solution to reduce time and cost, because they are prefabricated components. There is no need for formwork like concrete structures."

The general fear of large-scale wooden construction is the threat of fire. However, experts say that properly designed chunks of wood will produce natural fire-retardant wood, which will scorch rather than burn completely.

"When wood burns, it's like when trees burn," Law said. "The bark turns into coke and becomes the protective layer on top. They will eventually apply this protective coating on it, which is very cool because you are using the natural properties of wood to protect yourself for fire protection. Engineers are designing buildings Will take this into consideration."

"The consumer's opinion is [the wooden structure will burn]," D'Esposito said. "However, if you do it well, it will not be more risky than any other type of building. So this is more important than anything else in people's minds."

Law said that since all three structural components face a series of supply chain, location and demand factors, it remains to be seen how large amounts of wood can be compared economically with steel and concrete.

"It depends on how far you are from the tree," he said. "One of the challenges is to transport anything large and heavy, because trucks are now very expensive to transport. Historically, it has been very cost-competitive in the Pacific Northwest, where there are a lot of timber sources. Because of the cost of these trucks, The farther you ship it, we will see a cost disadvantage of 10% to 20%.

"We see that people are now willing to pay this premium because from an architectural point of view, it is a beautiful product," Law said. "Then you will get the most important green credit. Now there are some projects where our customers will say,'Hey, we have to pay a premium. We realize that this will cost us more because we are not close to the trees , But let us do this and move on.'"

Steve Burrows, a structural engineer and consultant, says the economics of large amounts of wood remain daunting. "If you think of a lot of wood as a structural material, in terms of cost, it accounts for about 20% of the cost of a building. If we think of it as some kind of architectural revolution, it's not. We basically still use one One material replaces another."

Burrows said that the large amount of wood as a sustainable building material is also questionable. "If it comes from sustainable forest wood, it is sustainable, but if it is not, it is not," he said. "If it is to be harvested sustainably, it will increase costs. Therefore, a large amount of wood is not cheaper than alternatives, and one of the important reasons why it does not have a market share is price.

"The other reason is its performance. As a material, its efficiency is very low. There are many fibers but not many structural properties. In extreme bending, the fibers work hard, while the rest of the wood does not work hard at all. ."

Burrows said there are other issues, first of all the metal used to connect the wood. 

"Metal is stronger than wood," he said, "so the connector you get is very inefficient, and the steel connector may be 10% of the cost. In addition, [wood] is not very compressible, so it is not good for columns. Good, and it is not very good in shearing, so it is not very good for horizontal systems. It is currently mainly used for horizontal flow systems, just because it is not economical to use it anywhere else. Then, this is the construction industry Is it a revolution? I can see that a large amount of wood can be developed into some products, because we are working hard to design more sustainable. The large amount of wood on the market may become an economic substitute for other materials, but there is still a long way to go go."

Despite this, other aspects of large amounts of wood still have an undeniable appeal. Holmes' Mahjoub said this includes its "biophilicity." "Many of our customers, especially technology customers, are very interested in this component and bring their employees to a very warm and healthier place. There are many studies discussing that if you are happier, you will be more Efficiency, so this part also applies to aesthetic factors."

D'Esposito of Jones Lang LaSalle agreed. "Another important thing to consider is that people really like large wooden buildings," he said. "They like to work and live there. It's just a very eye-catching type of architecture and design that you can expose in a way that people like.

“Therefore, renting large timber office buildings can usually get a premium compared to ordinary glass curtain wall office buildings,” D'Esposito added. "We have seen that, on average, the rental premium and speed of large wooden buildings are faster than traditional office spaces.

"They will continue to be built because they are very popular."

You can contact Philip Russo at prusso@commercialobserver.com.

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