World's Tallest Wooden Skyscraper Planned in Tokyo

CNBC ^ | 2/20 | Holly Ellyatt

[ClearCase_guy]

Wood is a green, renewable resource.

Until it burns.

[marktwain]

Wood is great fuel...

[CodeToad]

“Until it burns.”

That’s renewing it!

[kaehurowing]

One word:

Termites

[laplata]

Fire trap. An arsonist dream.

[righttackle44]

You call the people in this building "the dead" after the earthquake or the fire. Or the earthquake and the fire.

[Enchante]

"Using 185,000 cubic meters of timber, the building is expected to cost around 600 billion Japanese yen ($5.6 billion) which is twice the amount of a conventional high-rise building constructed with current technology."

DOUBLE the cost just so you can say you built with wood??? Yeah, that is rational.

[Deaf Smith]

So they sell their lumber in cubic meters instead of board feet?

Or will it all be particle and wafer board?

[kanawa]

Godzilla will make short work of that.

[rockinqsranch]

Precisely.

[ClearCase_guy]

[DIRTYSECRET]

Amazing. “Those guys are really smart. I’m surprised they lost the war.” Pete Rose.

[napscoordinator]

The jokes just write themselves.

[Simon Foxx]

Hey Pete: The REALLY smart guys live in Switzerland, which has not lost a war since the Middle Ages ...

... and they don’t bet on base-ball either ...

:>)

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Got wood?

[Jamestown1630]

What could possibly go wrong?

[AzNASCARfan]

As a structural drafter for the last 31 years, I can say this is one of the craziest ideas I have ever heard.... ESPECIALLY there with the earthquakes they have. Highest I have done in wood, is 4 story wood hotels, think they were Comfort suites etc... I am not an engineer, but the problem with wood I think becomes the width to height ratio that kills the shear designs. Wind governs design here in Arizona, but pretty sure Seismic will there. The stuff I did in San Francisco years ago, out of concrete and only 24 stories high for the towers, were insanely reinforced. Barely enough room left to get concrete in after all the steel was in there. I have already sent this article on to a few different engineers I have worked with over the years to ask their opinions on it... Just seems insane to me!

[Enduro Guy]

“...the planned structure will be a hybrid of mostly wood and steel.”

That statement made me lose all interest...

[AzNASCARfan]

I would guess it will be mostly manufactured lumber, like glu-lam beams etc. We use material known as micro lam which is for laminated studs when they get real tall and floor joists etc. in high stress areas when solid sawn lumber wont work and to keep depths down when architectural design dictates.