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If the invention of steel forged the high-rise, the iconic building’s future may be pine. This fall, the future will be under construction in the United States. A 12-story high-rise built primarily of wood is set to go up in Portland, Ore., like giant Lincoln Logs extending more than 100 feet into the air. When finished, the project named Framework will be the tallest building in the country to be constructed with a promising engineered wood material, cross-laminated timber.

This feat of wooden engineering is something the Department of Agriculture as well as the wood products industry is hoping to use to start opening up the tall building market — traditionally cornered by steel and concrete — all while bolstering rural economies and fighting climate change.

“There is a huge amount of interest both from the architectural community and from the sustainability community relative to the carbon sequestration wood offers and the benefits it offers for managing forests,” said Thomas Robinson, a principal architect with LEVER Architecture, one of the firms designing the Portland project.

Proponents of cross-laminated timber and other mass timber products say it could create demand for the woody material clogging overgrown forests, especially in the West. Creating a market for small-diameter trees or diseased or burned forests by turning it into a high-value building material would create jobs, something once-great rural paper mill towns desperately need.

USDA, the Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory and a handful of the forest products industry groups have jumped in the cross-laminated timber game, throwing money at educating engineers and architects, promoting the product, and moving forward with research.

From E&E Publishing: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060032371