The U.S. is lagging Europe, Canada and Australia in the massive-timber tall-building movement—heating up because renewable, low-carbon-footprint timber is the most sustainable structural material. A feasibility study released last week for a 42-story concrete-jointed mass-timber frame—considered supertall in a world in which the tallest timber building is only 105 ft—could begin to change all that by stirring up interest in tall timber structures in the U.S. and even providing grist for the mill for supertall timber towers elsewhere.
Under the Timber Tower Research Project, a team from the Chicago office of architect-engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill developed a performance-based conceptual design for a composite structure that is "marketable, serviceable, economical and sustainable," says Benton Johnson, the SOM structural associate who led the seven-month project, funded by the Softwood Lumber Board. SOM is not patenting the structural system.