Yesterday we looked at making a key building material, cement, more green and today we’re looking at a skyscraper to be built out of wood. Wood is a much kinder material to the environment thanks to the fact that wood is renewable because it comes from trees.
The idea may sound odd given that wooden skyscrapers may not sound strong or even fire-resistant but all of this is thought out for this building which may get built in Vancouver.
‘Tallwood’ would be made of large panels of ‘laminated strand lumber’—a composite made by gluing together strands of wood.
Trees are a renewable resource, and they help to reduce air pollution. Sourcing from sustainably-managed forests could be deemed more environmentally sensitive, according to CNN.
Unlike concrete—which produces about 6-9kg of carbon dioxide for every 10kg of concrete—wood sucks carbon out of the atmosphere.
And contrary to popular belief, wood actually is quite fire-resistant.
“It may sound counter-intuitive, but performing well in a fire is something inherent in large pieces of wood, that’s why in forest fires the trees that survive are the largest ones,†Green said.
I think this is a pie in the sky idea, a.k.a. a brain fart. That much is apparent from Mr. Green’s skewed understanding of forestry. Trees suck carbon out of the atmosphere. Wood is dead, it sucks nothing out of the atmosphere. To the contrary, wood like all substances, eventually decomposes and releases its stored carbon. Yes, large, living trees have a degree of fire resistance but that’s because they’re trees, not wood. Large, dead trees – let’s call them unharvested wood – burn very nicely. It’s a combination of factors that allows some, but by no means all, large living trees to survive forest fires. Those factors are not present in the type of wood structure this fellow is proposing. And, for that reason alone, I’m pretty sure he’ll never get financing much less a building permit.