AGO - Gehry's curvy wood facade

Awarded

Admittedly, award ceremonies come around at all times during the year, but two of the recent and notable awards for wood building and architecture were the UK Wood Design Awards (October 2009) and the Ontario Wood Awards (November 2009, also written up here).

Of all the amazing buildings (and furniture) that have received an award, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s curvy wood-glass facade designed by Frank Gehry (and executed by local engineers Halcrow Yolles and Equilibrium Consulting) is the one I already had a chance to visit. Interestingly, it also won a steel design award. You can see one of my images on the right.

Another structure that caught my eye is the Deal Pier (UK) shown below. Congratulations to the engineers, architects and builders of these and all other winning buildings.

Deal Pier Cafe & Bar

Please Submit

There are still awards to be won. If you have built using wood anytime during the last year, then it may not be too late to submit to one of these:

• 2009 North American Wood Design Awards (deadline: December 7, 2009)
• 2010 California Wood Design Awards (deadline: November 20, 2009)
• 2010 Southeast Wood Design Awards (deadline: January 8, 2010)
• All Canadian awards programs
• All US awards programs

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NEES Shake-table 7-story house test (Image: John van de Lindt, Colorado State University)

This note is a bit last minute but if you have time tomorrow morning (Tuesday, 7/14) at 11:00 am EDT, then you can watch the largest wooden building shake-table test live via webcast.

This building, which consists of a steel story plus six platform-framed wood stories, will be subjected to a nasty (50% increased magnitude) version of the Northridge earthquake. The test will be conducted at a full-size shaketable installation in Kobe, Japan. From the press release:

Visit www.science360.gov/live at 11:00 a.m. EDT on July 14, 2009, to see a live NSF webcast featuring footage from a shake table test from that morning—the world’s largest—and an opportunity to ask questions of the engineers behind the project. Username and password requirements will be waived at 11:00 a.m. EDT for the webcast.

For more information go to NSF’s NEESWood project page. That site also features some interesting videos.

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Dukta Matte

On May 26th, the Swiss wood awards were given out. After the German awards a few weeks ago, these awards highlight more reasons for building with wood such as the custom cut wood slab that transforms into undulating plates (shown above).

More on holzpreis-schweiz.ch.

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e3 Building in Berlin, Germany. Seven stories in wood.

The German wood awards have just been given to a variety of projects that include built objects – anything from highrises to garden sheds – and new products for wood construction.

The first prize went to an amazing object: A seven story apartment building in Berlin whose structure consists of glulam columns and beams as well as solid wood walls. It is the e3 and more info is available on e3berlin.de. See also the image on the right.

It is also great news to note that one of the honorable mentions went to a colleague of ours and one of his projects. Prof. Leander Bathon and the Wood Technology Lab of the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden received this prize for a bridge in Austria that uses a novel glued-in wood-concrete composite system. Some information on our own work on this system can be found here.

Wood-concrete composite bridge in Austria

Finally, if you know German then you can download the official publication.

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Koch Center, Deerfield Academy

Coming from a wood background, it is a bit disappointing that most (low- to mid-rise) curtain-walls or storefront glazed walls contain only aluminum mullions as their support around here (US). It appears that many architects simply don’t specify these in wood. This fact came to my attention again last weekend when I visited the recently completed Koch Center at the Deerfield Academy in Deerfiled, MA (by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill). Contrary to common building practice, this building actually uses wood for the mullions of its glazed facade.

Overall, this building has many nice features. For example, there is a beautiful solid masonry wall theme and curved light bands throughout all floors. In addition, it proudly sports a (slightly oversized) “LEED Gold” plaque close to the central atrium. In the context of its materiality and claim to resource efficiency, it is perfectly justified to find the mullions for all glazed walls made of glulam.

Glulam curtain wall mullion with thin aluminum section

These vertical mullions span only from floor to floor, so wind loads shouldn’t be too high. What surprised me was that the glazing is actually supported by aluminum “mini-mullion” profiles, which in turn are attached to the glulams (see images left and below for detail). While I am sure there was a reason for doing it this way, I believe this is not necessary. As shown in one of the images below, curtain wall manufacturers (Kawneer in this example) make profiles that can directly be screwed into a supporting mullion. In that case, the entire structural support would be provided by the glulam and the aesthetics (and manufacturing) would be simplified.

Aluminum-wood connections

Since these wood-glass facade systems are a bit more common in Europe, manufacturers over there have solved some of the tricky details already. For example, the connection between horizontal and vertical mullions can be done very elegantly using Knapp’s hidden Ricon connector (see image below).

In case you are in need of arguments for using wood for curtain walls or glazed facades, consider these:

• Aluminum has far higher embodied energy than wood. Also, wood can be harvested from sustainable sources.
• Wood mullions can reduce problems with thermal bridging and condensation.
• Wood mullions look good and give a warmer appearance than aluminum.

Kawneer screw-on veneer system (Image: Kawneer)

Knapp's Ricon facade connector (Image: Knapp)

Links:

• Kawneer 1600 System – Going by the drawing above, their screw-on option is not marketed for use with wood. But there shouldn’t be a reason why it wouldn’t work.
• Alcoa AA 100 – A similar system by Alcoa.
• Knapp connections – Their Ricon connector is perfectly suited for connecting wooden horizontal and vertical mullions in a hidden “snap-in” application.
• Fassaden window systems – This company looks like a European import (located in PA) and offers complete wood-glass facade systems of many sizes. Look for technical details on their website. They also offer a wood clip-on cover as an option.
• Deerfield Academy Natatorium – Another wooden structure by SOM in the same location.

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Fire Protection I: Allowable Heights and Areas
Friday, January 30, 10 am PST

Designing the World’s Tallest Modern Mixed-use Wood Building
Monday, February 23, 2009, 1 pm PST

Fire Protection II: Basic Principles for Wood Frame Structures
Monday, March 23, 10 am PST

I am particularly looking forward to the second one. Apparently building tall in wood is the latest thing. Forget about 3-5 story limitations, higher is technically possible and is being realized in several projects. One of those is the e3 building in Berlin and architects in Vienna, Austria are apparently dreaming of 20 stories. Below is an image of the e3 building:

e3 Building in Berlin, Germany. Seven stories in wood.

FYI: WoodWorks is an initiative of the Wood Products Council, which is a cooperative venture of all the major wood associations in North America, as well as research organizations and government agencies.

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Seated bearing in Chamshan temple (image by - other - Alex)

Just came across these amazing images of a Chinese temple under construction (thanks to Alex from China for sending me the link).

Below is the entire slideshow. You can find it also on the temple website.

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At this point you can find there English and German news gathered through Google’s news service.

Link:

http://www.alexschreyer.net/timber-engineering/news/

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• Non-residential, Institutional, Architectural Interiors
• Commercial – Small, Large
• Residential – Single Family, Multi-family
• Remodeled – Non-residential, Residential
• International Building

Deadline for submissions is Monday, November 10, 2008 and more information as well as the registration form can be found on the CWC wesite. You can also browse previous winners here.

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