U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition Names Winning Designs

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced the award of funding to support development of two tall wood buildings in the U.S. Two teams will split $3 million in funding to support the research and development of their proposed projects.  The contest required buildings at least 80 feet tall using mass-timber (such as cross laminated timber) and other engineered-wood.

One winner is 475 W. 18th, a 10-story residential high-rise in New York. 
Architect: SHoP Architects,
Consultants: Arup, Icor Consulting Engineers, Atelier Ten
Developer: Spiritos Properties

The other winner is Framwork, a 12-story multi-use building in Portland Oregon's Pearl District
(residential, office, commercial, and community spaces)
Architect:  LEVER Architecture
Consultants: KPFF
Developer: Project

More on the projects:
http://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/us-tall-wood-building-prize-competition-names-winning-designs_o
USDA Press Release
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2015%2F09%2F0259.xml

Disaster Resilience by SEI Committee on Sustainability

Disaster Resilience White Paper

Disaster Resilience Working Group Chair, Tonatiuh (Tona) Rodriguez-Nikl announced that the working groups white paper on the topic has been published:

I'm happy to announce that the Disaster Resilience White Paper is finally published online at http://tiny.cc/DisResSust. This white paper explains how disaster resilience is indispensable to sustainability and is a great resource for sustainability professionals who want to get started in resilient design. Please share this white paper with anybody who might be interested.

The white paper covers design guidance for resilient design, disaster mitigation, and quantification of disaster resilience benefits through life cycle assessment.

Developer Plans to Build a Seven-Story, Wooden Office Building in Downtown Minneapolis

Hines is hiring Michael Green Architecture to design a seven-story office building in Minneapolis as part of the Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. If approved it would be the tallest modern all-timber structure in the U.S..  Michael Green just completed the tallest wood structure in Canada, Wood Innovation and Design Centre, in Prince George, B.C..

http://online.wsj.com/articles/towering-ambition-tallest-wood-office-building-deal-of-the-week-1415755448

October news roundup

Time again for our monthly news and events roundup, links from around the web.

Conferences and Seminars
ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure, Nov 6-8
http://content.asce.org/conferences/icsi2014/index.html
Note the new focus of this conference: "This conference is not about how to be sustainable. If it were, we would tell you not to waste your time. Instead, and more appropriately, this conference is about how to deal with the consequences of non-sustainability, that is, how to plan, design and construct infrastructure for a new and increasingly harsh operating environment."

WoodWorks National Symposium: Toward Taller Wood Buildings in Chicago Nov 6-7.

http://www.woodworks.org/education-event/toward-taller-wood-buildings/

WEBINAR – Bullitt Center: Meeting the Living Building Challenge by Brian Court of Miller Hull. November 19, 12-1pm

http://www.woodworks.org/education-event/webinar-bullitt-center-nov-2014/

Environmental Declarations
Lefarge Canada goes one step beyond an Environmental Product Declaration and creates a Environmental Building Declaration for their new research facility.
http://www.athenasmi.org/news-item/lafarge-canada-publishes-building-declaration-for-new-research-facility/

Concrete EPDs: The NRMCA recently released two important reports on industry averages:
http://www.nrmca.org/sustainability/EPDProgram/Downloads/NRMCA%20EPD%2010.08.2014.pdf
http://www.nrmca.org/sustainability/EPDProgram/Downloads/NRMCA_Benchmark_Report_-_October_14_2014_web.pdf

Architecture 2030's release on the NRMCA study above, including an overview of embodied carbon, LCAs,
http://www.architecture2030.org/enews/news_101614.html  

September news roundup

Time for a news roundup -- recent links from around the web. Have something you want shared with SEAW? Send it our way.

Wood

Lessons learned on recent mass timber buildings around the world

http://www.rethinkwood.com/tall-wood-survey

Hans-Erik wrote an article on tall wood buildings in Arcade magazine (note: article is embargoed for non-subscribers until November 11)

http://arcadenw.org/issues/empathy-fire-and-spades

FPInnovations is selling a handbook on Tall Wood buildings for Canada

https://fpinnovations.ca/ResearchProgram/advanced-building-systems/Pages/promo-tall-wood-buildings.aspx#.VBmdPBYZ7CU

The website for the ambitious USA Tall Wood Building competition is now active. The goal is to realize at least an 8 or 10 story commercially viable timber high rise in the USA. http://tallwoodbuildingcompetition.org/

Reuse and Preservation

Architectural Record discusses buildings that are not flexible or functional enough to last long.

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/critique/2014/1409-Obdurate-By-Design.asp                                     

Preservation Green Lab (a project of The National Trust for Historic Preservation) finds that a mix of older and smaller buildings hold more economic and social vitality than new construction.

http://www.preservationnation.org/information-center/sustainable-communities/green-lab/oldersmallerbetter/

Preservation Green Lab begins a research series on building demolition and reuse with an article that uses Los Angeles as a case study for issues surrounding building reuse.

http://www.preservationnation.org/information-center/sustainable-communities/green-lab/partnership-building-reuse/

Energy

AIA is giving a series of classes on net zero building design

http://www.aiaseattle.org/GettingToZero

Building codes could harmonize seamlessly with LEED certification as USGBC, ASHRAE, and ICC join forces
http://www.usgbc.org/articles/standard-1891-igcc-leed-phillips-head-hammer

http://www2.buildinggreen.com/article/one-standard-rule-them-all-leed-igcc-1891-be-parts-single-system

Resilience

A resilient city conference was held in San Francisco this September and discussed the Rebuild by Design competition sponsored by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force

http://resilientcity.uli.org/           http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/

Oakland hires its first “Chief Resilience Officer”

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/oakland-hires-its-first-chief-resilience-officer

The Cost of Retrofitting Multifamily for Resilience (to floods)

http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/resilience-efforts-hurt-affordability-multifamily/

Kiewit General Manson issues their design-build team’s first annual report on the strategies they used to incorporate sustainability into the SR 520 design.

SR 520 Floating Bridge and Landings Project Annual Sustainability Data Report