Posted on 11/23/2012 1:13:18 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Some architects believe that in order to build the sustainable cities of the future, we need to look back to the log cabin era and build “skyscrapers” out of wood.
Just over a century ago, the architects and engineers who invented the skyscraper set us on the path to becoming an urban world. Tall buildings of concrete and steel helped make urban density—and the increased sustainability that comes with it—possible.
But the buildings themselves come at a heavy, and often hidden, environmental price. Concrete and steel are some of the most energy-intensive materials on the planet. The manufacture and transport of concrete, for example, is responsible for about five percent of global CO2 emissions, more than the entire airline industry.
Woodscrapers: Building Sustainable Skyscrapers
“When we talk about sustainability of buildings, we’re really tinkering around with the little minutiae”—a green roof here, a solar panel there, says Michael Green, an architect in Vancouver, Canada. “Those things are good, but they’re not even close to good enough.”
Green thinks that in order to build the sustainable cities of the future, we need to look back to the log cabin era. That is, we should be building skyscrapers out of wood. His design concept for a “woodscraper” is based on mass timber, a class of wood products that come in panels up to 64 feet long and eight feet wide. These materials, with names such as cross-laminated timber, laminated strand lumber, and laminated veneer lumber, look similar to plywood but are thicker and much stronger...
(Excerpt) Read more at utne.com ...
Sustainability = Marxist BS. Just UN Agenda 21 grab for our Personal Land Ownership - don’t fall for it!
Dear Mr. Michael Green, sir,
Wood burns, dumb-ox.
There were other reasons behind the shift to largely steel and concrete construction for multistory buildings in high density areas.
Fire was the main one.
Concrete and steel are also among the most durable materials and therefore extremely green. The real issue is the feminization of the building trades which pushes this nonsense.
Leaving out the so-called green advantages, how does wood construction compete with concrete and steel?
How many trees need to be cut down for these “sustainable” woodscapers? The greenie wienies will never go for it.
They use formaldehyde and other wonderful chemicals to treat the wood.
Almost forget........how big a tent would be needed for termite control?
Ping about my custom steps.
Assuming those are apartments though, it might not be all that unpleasant a living area individually with all that outdoor space.
But, like the showy CGI renderings of the Boeing Dreamliner, all that space and gee-whiz stuff will give way to practical reality and economics. If built, they will not waste nearly that much of the building envelope on porches and verandas in the sky. That would be true no matter what method of construction used or the nature of the building materials.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.
Ignorance is bliss.
Morons are now running government, and begin making inroads into engineering and the sciences. And those will fail as miserably and totally as the government-by-imbeciles is working for us.
How many train wrecks can we tolerate at the same time?
Anyone with google can discover why "skyscrapers" were impossible before iron and steel, from the tower of Babel to the New York skyline.
Something to do with tensile and compressive ultimate strength of materials.
Large-scale “House of Cards”
I guess “sustainability” has more to it than just re-cycling? I mean who is going to design a skyscraper to be torn down in any forseeable time-frame?
I stopped at the point where high urban density is somehow sustainable...
??
Wall off a city and see how sustainable they are.
Oh. Plywood.
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