The design team for Ascent—a 284-ft-tall apartment building just getting under way in Milwaukee that is on deck to be the world’s tallest hybrid mass timber tower—leaned on the approvals experience for a 148-ft-tall timber building that was fully permitted but never built in Portland, Ore. The project, known as Framework and designed by LEVER Architecture, "forged the path” for Ascent’s variances, says Ascent's Jason Korb, principal architect for Korb + Associates Architects.
The Ascent team even used the results of one of the fire tests done for the unbuilt Framework, funded by a $1.5-million U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize. Ascent also received aid, in the form of a federal grant from the U.S. Forest Service, to assist with other fire tests needed to prove mass timber’s ability to perform as well as traditional building materials. The data is available to the public, says the developer, New Land Enterprises and Wiechmann Enterprises.