Innovative Real Estate with Three Squared, Inc.
As specialists in efficient residential and commercial prefabricated design, Leslie Horn, Breck Crandell, and Jill Ramirez of Three Squared, Inc. share their greatest insights, tips, and case studies from their years of experience in the industry. They'll be giving you their best advice through, trainings, guest features, and Q&A segments so you can turn your innovative vision to a reality.
Innovative Real Estate with Three Squared, Inc.
Is Mass Timber the Future of Development with Jill Ramirez
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This past summer TSI's very own Jill Ramirez had the opportunity to travel to Finland and attend a mass timber conference and workshop.
Mass timber is an innovative and eco friendly building material that has been gaining popularity in Europe that last decade or so and is not starting to be implemented in the United States thanks to collaboration between US and european policymakers, tradespeople, and architects.
In this episode we sit down with Jill to talk about what she learned during her time in Finland and what were her key takeaways for implementing this alternative building material in a variety of projects.
Jill also explains the environmental impact of mass timber, and how the process of sourcing the material helps manage forests rather than harm them.
Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn:
- What is mass timber
- Why the United States started using it sooner
- How it's sourced and the environmental impact
- Mass timber's fire retention
- What projects make the most sense to use mass timber
Supplementary Links:
Michigan State Mass Timber
Sterling Solutions
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Welcome to the Innovative Real Estate Podcast with your hosts Leslie Horn, Brett Crandall, and Claire Olilla. We're here to make your life easier as a real estate developer and teach you everything we've learned about designing and building innovative homes, multifamily, and mixed-use structures. On this podcast, we'll be giving you our best advice, trainings, and QA segments so you can learn from our years of experience and make your innovative vision a reality.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to another installation of Innovative Real Estate with Three Squared Inc., uh, hopefully a podcast you look forward to listening to. We have an incredible episode prepared for you today where we're going to cover a relatively new construction type. Uh, it's been around for centuries, but it's in a new lens and a new light, and it's actually coming to America. We're going to be talking about mass timber. Mass timber is different than traditional timber construction and definitely different than two by four construction, which we're all pretty relatively uh used to at this point. But we have a lot of information, and uh, one of our teammates here actually just came back from Europe where she spent a significant amount of time learning more about this construction type where it is highly utilized. And so we're going to be talking a little bit about that and diving into the construction type of mass timber construction today as one of those innovative real estate options. Uh, in lieu of a project highlight of the week, uh, we actually have a number of projects that have led us to talking about this construction type. Uh, we had a client about a year ago who came to us and was very interested in utilizing mass timber construction to rebuild a snowmobile bar in the Adirondack Mountains, uh, which was fascinating. And we did a lot of research on that project, and it has led us to looking at some of our larger endeavors, some of our mixed-use and multifamily structures to see if this construction type is suitable for us, especially in the Midwest and in the state of Michigan. You know that we're a Detroit-based firm. So looking at how mass timber is working its way across the country and where that timber is sourced and how we're utilizing it, all things we're going to be discussing today. So we're going to dive in. We've got some special guests today. We've got the whole crew on board. Not only do you have the usual guests, Leslie and I, but we also have invited Bryce Cox, who's one of our architectural designers here on staff. We also have Jill Ramirez, who has been a frequent on and off guest on this podcast as the director of projects here at Resquared Inc. So I'm going to hand it over to Jill Ramirez, who's going to kick things off and talk a little bit about not only her experience with the uh symposium uh regarding mass timber that she attended in Finland a month ago, but also a little bit about this construction type and how we can work it into the projects that we are currently actively working on as an alternative construction method. Jill.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I think that there's so many areas to start with, but I'll just dive into this conference that I went to in Finland. There were 50 delegates from the US that went over for this conference, 10 of them being from Michigan. And what I learned is that there's been a five-year standing MOU, uh memorandum of understanding with Finland, brought on by Gretchen Whitmer in March 2020 to kind of revamp how the US uses our existing forest ecology and how we can utilize um kind of like lessons learned in Europe because they're way more um, I don't want to necessarily say advanced, but they they do have more resources, more mills and technology readily available for them. So they do have more um precedent projects and they've built their proof of concepts, where I think in the US, we're kind of starting to get there, but there's a lot of ways to catch up. And so I think that throughout this podcast, I'll be sprinkling in areas that kind of need a little bit more work versus areas that I'm really excited to bring to our team as another alternative method of construction to just work in some biophilic designs, work in some sustainability aspects. That's one of our core values to be good stewards to the environment, and also to kind of factor in everything going on with climate change, particularly with all these hurricanes that we're just getting battered with here in the US. So we know that this um the building industry is one of the biggest producers of CO2 in the environment. And so I think the conversation is becoming more and more relevant for how we can combat that and be good stewards as architects and designers in construction to build a better, healthier environment for the people living here and using these buildings.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Jill, um, as a as seeing us go through this process and doing our learning curve, you know, I always come to it from a point of cost. And I don't want you to answer anything right now because I think everybody knows that the cost of mass timber construction, um, just like other building types that are new, oftentimes don't come in with the best pricing until they become more popular. Although I know that we have found some opportunities to move forward in a hybrid approach that actually makes it work. And you know, when it is it is it applicable for like super affordable housing? I think we all agree the answer is no. Would that be a correct statement?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think there's a few points that I want to touch on for this because first and foremost, unfortunately, this the deal is a lot of projects in the US that are constructed out of mass timber end up sourcing their products from Europe, Austria in particular, because the pricing ends up being cheaper, which is very counterintuitive to the way that you supply materials. Typically, you would think that the more locally sourced a material is, the more economic it would be. But unfortunately, we don't have the same systems and supply readily available here as is available in places like Finland and Austria. So we do have lumber mills here, but people processing a particular mass timber product, such as glue lamps or CLT cross-laminated timber paneling, is not commonly made here. And the types of grades of wood are just they're not as high prioritized because our systems aren't necessarily set up for it just yet. Some areas do and are actively working towards this. Um so I think that pricing, it's just like any other construction method. If a contractor is unsure about comps, they're going to beef up their numbers because they'd rather cover themselves. And so part of what we've learned is that it's very important to discuss and establish early on if you're going to be building with mass timber, work with the contractor right away and make sure they're very aware that that's the intended construction method so that you can work together to make the pricing viable so that they're not putting in those buffers. And I think the other most important factor to this is that mass timber construction can be a lot of off-site prefabrication that's just tilted up and put in place, which reduces labor and that helps save on cost and construction time. So a lot of times a contractor might not be totally familiar with the days that they can shave off of a project. And that's where the real cost savings comes in. And unfortunately, it kind of depends on how your contract is set up with your contractor. If it's a lump sum contract, you're not going to benefit from those days saved because you're not going to get that cost savings versus a cost plus, which is what we support, tends to be a more safe method so that you can benefit in some of the cost savings so that you're not over-amplifying your costs because there's these unknowns with mass timber being a newer construction methodology in the US, um, in the particular way that we're using it in this present day and age.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm excited to start utilizing it and integrate it into some of our projects. Also, there are some tax credits that that are available. Uh, you really have to be building quite a bit. But I I'm excited about this specifically because of the sustainability. And I I believe that it's one of those prefabricated opportunities of materials of opportunities for us to really share with our with our client base and and the the people who actually hire us to do good, be good, and to actually have a sustainable and cost-effective project. I know that was I started out by saying it wasn't cost effective, but I think it can be based on some of the things and lessons that you've learned. And I'm looking forward to it and trying it out, especially in a hybrid approach. So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's like a good idea, Leslie. It's when you do something new for the first time, it's gonna cost more and it's gonna be harder to have a support network. But we know that some of these paths are worth following, and that's where I think Jill's being a great leader on this team is bringing this to the table and pointing out like all the benefits of it, just acknowledging that there's very little support network for working with this construction type because it's not our norm. As often, Europe is, you know, a decade ahead of us and these construction types. And it's not like we don't have the lumber, it's not like we don't have the tree species. But what Jill is saying is we don't have the process to manufacture them in the same way, or at least we're not putting our efforts into the process. So before we go any further, for the edification of our audience, I would like to just briefly give a synopsis of what is mass timber. Mass timber is okay, you know a two by four. You've been to Lowe's, Home Depot, Menards, you've seen a two by four. Two by fours are kind of bent and warped and they're crooked now. It's because we grow trees very, very quickly and we chop them down as fast as possible, and we make lumber out of them. That new growth wood is never going to have the dimensional stability or the strength that the old timber that we used to build buildings out of had. So, what we're doing now is we're taking this not super great product and we're putting a bunch of them in a row. So you lay a bunch of two by fours flat on the ground, and then you do another layer of it over top of that, but you turn that second layer 90 degrees. So now they're crossing each other. And then you put that in a heat compress with some adhesives in it, and what you get as a result is this very stable, very solid piece of mass timber, which is made from a bunch of smaller pieces that have been compressed together. This is not a new idea. We've been doing it for decades and decades, like back to the 30s and 40s, when laminated veneer lumber, where we took sheets of cuts of plywood and pressed them together to make those big beams. If you've ever been in a church or an auditorium where it's wood beams that go over your head, that's an LVL, a laminated veneer lumber. Now we're doing that with big sheets of material that is cross-laminated timber. And that can make floor panels, it can make wall panels, it can make roof panels. So not only do we have the beams and the columns, but we also have all the plates that connect to that entire process together in order to make like a whole building out of timber. So that's what we're referring to. It's a combination of all these systems: glue-laminated beams, LVLs, cross-laminated timbers. So it's all these systems coming together, but essentially it's all made out of wood, which, as we know, is one of the most sustainable materials on the face of the earth. So, with that said, yes, we're doing something new that's relatively uh unknown to the United States and our building codes. So that's where Leslie starts in with a conversation. As a developer, wood, cost, cost, cost. Yes, we have an uphill battle with cost because it's not the norm. So we're fighting upstream against that. But we do know that there are inherent benefits with working with sustainable materials that are renewable resources. And there are government incentives that are backing this because everybody kind of understands, like, yeah, we should we should probably with materials like wood and not synthesizing materials that are going to cause cancer and cause a whole lot of mess. So, with that, I'll turn it back to the table. Jill, do you have anything to respond to in what we said? Otherwise, no.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so let's talk about the government because I am hugely interested in talking with policymakers and how we can keep an open conversation and try and work with them to not only educate them with what we're intending to do with mass timber construction, but also how we can support them. It's not unlike any other conversation that I would typically have with a code and zoning official and ask the code and zoning contact, what are you looking to see? What information do you need from me so that I can help get someone a building permit? Now the conversation is kind of shifting into how can we work together to get more buildings built out of mass timber because it's better for the environment. And I think that the government is already kind of leaning towards supporting this as a more commonly seen construction methodology. So I think that it's not only partnering with policymakers, but also forestry contacts. And so I think that a big part of the conversation is just getting education across the board for clients, developers, contractors, policymakers, but also people who are inherently against cutting down trees. I think there's a huge preconceived notion about clear-cutting a forest. And that's not what we're looking to do. We're actually looking to manage forests to create healthier environments so that there's not these old trees that are starting to decay and getting infested with any types of bugs, whatever, that's going to actually start to decompose and create a kind of like a higher prone area for forest fires. It's it's like what we're trying to do is mitigate the forestry system and try and help keep it maintained. We're trying to um combat the trees that are not the oldest grown trees because if you cut down all the oldest trees, that's like your best supply. We would that that would not be being good stewards to the environment and being good stewards to the forests. Um, we want to work more so with different ages of trees so that we're kind of like sprinkling our our forests with the areas that we're cutting down in the forest so that we're using a varied product that's a higher quality wood that's not so young, but not the oldest trees either. So you still have higher quality products. And then going back to the conversation about the government, they only allow so many trees to be cut down in federally regulated lands and forests. So I'm more interested in continuing conversations with forest management programs and the DNR in Michigan. That's actually some of the contacts that were out in Finland. They were looking to see how they could support governmental conversations to make sure that we're all collaborating together. So it's so many people across the board that it's like all of these layers of conversation. I'm trying to touch on every single part of it. And you see how quickly it starts to become a lot.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think what you're touching on is really important, which is that because we're using a wood material to make these, there's a whole lot more buy-in, and there's a path to success here because it is a familiar construction type to a certain degree, right? Like we're not starting from scratch, we're not fighting the fight that insulated concrete forms or SIP panels or shipping containers had to deal with where you're really like this is a new thing that the industry has never seen before. It's like it is wood, so all of our fasteners still work. The way that we pull buildings together still works. It's just you're building a whole lot more out of wood than you would have previously. Um, it's just in a slightly different lens, and there's a whole lot more prefabrication because the chunks of the building, if you will, are much larger and they're coming together much more quickly. And so there is that pre-fabrication element. So I think that that's like a really good topic that we need to consider is because it is relatively new to the building environment and the construction industry, but it's so akin to the way we have been building buildings that there is a path forward here that is quite clear for the people that are involved here. I think that's that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_04Let's pause there because I am interested in touching on the prefabrication portion of working with mass timber. I think that we keep saying over and over again, that's the way of the future is prefabrication. So you're reducing the amount in time of labor on the job site and you're working in a safer, more controlled, stable, temperature-controlled environment where you get a higher quality product, your workers are in a better environment, so they tend to be happier, they're safer. Um, so you get more of the work done off-site. So by the time you bring it on site, things just kind of come together. Um, something I was very interested to learn about were these building kits that were available in Europe specifically, where they could actually track each panel and they had an app. So each time that a panel is offloaded, you know exactly which panel goes where and can keep track in real time of the progress of the building. So nobody is like confused or sitting around waiting for a certain panel to be unloaded. Because Breck, I know that you had experience in that where we started to see that there could be a greater time savings if your panels come in a certain order so that you're not hunting for a specific piece that maybe you got the second floor panel when we need the first floor to go up first. So those are more time-saving um safety factors that all kind of make sense for where the building industry has to go based on rising construction costs and labor shortages.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like a Lego booklet or like uh when you get IKEA furniture, the booklet that comes with that. It's like here's your how-to of putting this assembly together because the building is built majority off-site, which is which is really interesting. And it does make the process faster if they're in the right order, because as we know, if they come in the wrong order, uh that can create some headaches. So there's definitely the whole logistics conversation behind pre-fabrication that still exists with these construction types, but I will agree that it's highly sustainable, makes a lot more sense for the people who are in the building and construction industry already, because fasteners is one of the biggest things that I'll continue to point to. It's like when you have to connect wood to steel or steel to concrete or any two dissimilar materials together, it's it's a whole new beast. And you have to have different tools to make those connections, different fasteners to make those connections. It's all wood, it's pretty straightforward. And I don't think there's anybody in the construction industry at large that would say, I don't understand wood. I don't know how it works. It's like it's ground zero, it's where you start the conversation. So, again, I think that there is a path forward here for making a good argument for this. I'll just go back to the challenges are that it's not universally accepted at large yet. So the United States doesn't have the mills and the processing facilities set up quite like Europe does at this moment, but we're working towards that. There's a clear direction towards that.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. And I think another part that we should discuss as well, as Breck, what you were just talking about, hybrid construction and using certain construction typologies where they're best suited still makes the most sense. So we're not saying like, hey, we want to build with mass timber. That's the only element that we want to see across the board in this entire building. Use concrete as a podium where it makes sense. Use concrete as a foundation where it's best suited. And then work with mass timber where you can, CLT panels for walls, floors, or ceilings. And then instead of glue lambs, maybe use steel to make it like a hybrid method of construction that's overall going to be more affordable for the end user and the client so that you're not just rewriting the entire narrative of a project because we were promoting mass timber. I think going from zero to a hundred is not doing anyone a best service. It's better to start with a hybrid construction methodology that contractors, developers, and users are more familiar with so that you're not going to like some. We always talk about alien spaceship buildings. I don't think a mass timber building is necessarily an alien spaceship, but starting in smaller bits and making it more attainable to work towards a mass timber construction typology is better suited than just going all out and trying to propose something that's going to be wildly out of budget.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so as a counterpoint to that, or rather a Question, let's talk about the scale of mass timber buildings. Like, let's say I wanted to do a fully mass timber building, but it's a very small scale project. Do you see that that's a better route in? Like if we were to start with like just a smaller house or a townhouse or a duplex out of mass timber? Like, what is the maximum scale and the minimum scale of this construction type where it kind of reaches its limits? Because I know that there are height limitations to it in the codes as of right now, as we learn this method of construction. So, where do you see like the top limit and the bottom limit of construction scale here?
SPEAKER_04So I think that mass timber buildings at a smaller scale are not as common because the more that you use a certain product, the more affordable it's going to be. So it's a little bit difficult to have a small mass timber order from a manufacturer because it's not necessarily going to pencil, versus if you're only using CLT panels for your wall, floor, or ceiling in a um smaller scale single family residential or up to like a quad, let's say. I think that that's a more feasible scale and more commonly used. Um, so the thing is not only is it trying to find the methods of mass timber construction that'll pencil for your project, but as well as factoring the in the codes. So the code books only allow so much of the mass timber to actually be exposed versus eventually you're gonna have to start covering that product. And then it's kind of like if you're covering this finished material, why specify it? So you kind of have to find that balance. So having this beautiful cross-laminated timber would be fabulous if you could have it all exposed in your building, but the building code still requires you to cover a certain percentage and with gyp board, which is really unfortunate because a cross-laminated timber.
SPEAKER_02So when you say like expose, you're talking like the walls are actually wood on the inside of the like they would look like.
SPEAKER_04It's the finished product as opposed to having drywall gypsum board as your walls.
SPEAKER_02You can have just like a white surface. Yeah, okay. All right, well, that's really interesting. Um, which I I mean, obviously, as an architect, this plays into the conversation around fire retention. Like when I think wood, I think wood can set on fire. Um, what what does the mass timber uh society say about this this particular topic? Do I have to be worried about this building burning down?
SPEAKER_04Something that's really important and interesting for from the workshop that I learned is that your mass timber columns, um columns and beams, you actually have a three-inch additional layer, three inches give or take, based on the size of the member. But there it's essentially a burn layer so that the structural integrity is not compromised, but that doesn't combat the smoke in a building. So you're still gonna have to have a fire suppression system of some sort. So you're gonna have to factor in your typical fire suppression building codes, but your members have to be a little bit more beefed up so that they maintain structural integrity despite a fire in a building. Something else that I learned was there are some precedent projects that we discussed in some workshops in Finland where building officials supported a mass timber framed core of a building. So that's like the elevator circulation core. But that has to be a fire protected system because that's your exit and egress out of the building in case of a fire. They could have constructed it out of mass timber, but the fire official required them to construct out of concrete instead because they didn't understand.
SPEAKER_02So let me get this straight via an analogy. Like, so if I take a bunch of tinder and throw it on to start a fire in a fire pit up north at the cabin or whatever, like it's gonna burn very quickly. But if I put like a big honking full log on there, that thing's gonna take forever to burn, right? So, what you're saying is the members are oversized to protect themselves so that they retain their structural integrity, even if the outside of that chars. Like a fire takes a while to really consume a building, but once it does, it's like it's out of control, and then it can spread, obviously, very quickly to other buildings. But what you're saying is because of the size of mass timber elements, it chars on the exterior layer, but still holds a majority of its structure.
SPEAKER_04Holds all of its structure, it has to be structurally related, uh, the structurally sized to support the building in case of a fire.
unknownHmm.
SPEAKER_02Fascinating.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right, Bryce, I know you're chomping at the bit here. Uh, you got a number of questions here, so why don't you dive on in?
SPEAKER_00Uh I think since we were just talking about it, um for for everybody who's listening in, a three-inch burn layer around columns and beams sounds pretty intense. So if if we can kind of throw around these extra three inches of dimensional structural lumber on top of some of these members, what's like the typical range that we're looking at in terms of dimensions for some of these columns? Like what's what's our absolute limit for how big some of these beams can get if we're using mass timber?
SPEAKER_04I mean, a column is size to support the load of the building. So it really depends. You've got to work with your structural engineer to size those members because a two-story building is obviously going to have different size columns than a high-rise building. So your columns are going to get larger at the bottom of the building and smaller at the top of a high-rise because they're not supporting as much load beneath it. So your burn layer is going to thicken as you get closer to the bottom of the building where you're supporting more load.
SPEAKER_02So having worked with timber a lot, like regular timber, just rough sawn material, I have been blown away by the strength of wood. It is insane to me how strong a four by four treated wood column, how much weight that can actually support. It's it's actually very impressive how strong wood is. So if you're saying you're adding a burn layer to that four by four column, is that is that three inches on both sides or is that three inches in total?
SPEAKER_04I believe on all sides, but let's maybe look into that and have a further discussion with a structural engineer to confirm because it depends on the actual size of the column and the extent of the burn layer required based on the building code is going to dictate how many hours that member has to be rated for. One hour, two hours, etc.
SPEAKER_02Fair enough. Okay, so instead of looking at like a six by six column that's supporting an internal structure, if the whole building is mass timber, we're talking about probably something closer to like a 12 by 12, which is still like a relatively sized member. Like, yeah, we have to take into consideration passing around that, but it kind of also adds like an element to the structure. When you when you think mass timber, if you've ever looked at a picture of one online of one of those buildings, it is, Jill, to your point, larger elements. Like you can clearly see like the the beefiness, I guess is the word you used of like the columns and the beams, but I I don't think it detracts from the design. I actually think it supports the design.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So something that I think you guys would find so interesting is that the wood the wood itself has to have glue that's stronger than the wood that holds these members together. So in a CLT panel, when you're putting glue between the layers to adhere those members, the glue itself needs to be stronger than the wood so that the member, if it breaks, you're breaking the wood, not the glue. Which I think is just like so fascinating because we learn I learned that um from talking with our friend Sandra Lupin. She just is such a great resource. If you haven't talked to her, there's there's other podcasts out there with her. She's an incredible resource advocating for the use of mass timber in construction. And I also wanted to touch on Breck the fact that there's light mass timber frame buildings and heavy mass timber frame buildings. And that all goes hand in hand with your um building codes. So there's now a type four construction instead of typically we think of type five heavy mass timber construction, there's also type four, which ends up being more common when you're constructing out a mass timber.
SPEAKER_02And can you elaborate a little bit on what those construction types mean? Like I don't think everybody's as well versed in construction types as you are when you say one, two, three, four, five. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, one is like invincible. It's an invincible structure, it can't be burned, it can't be broken, it's like super reinforced steel. And five is like it's a tinderbox. You can just like throw a match and the thing like burns up, right? So we're looking at the the middle ground of construction types here. So you got your gradient from invincible to just like completely burnable, right? So four would be, as you're saying, a traditional mass timber building, which is like it's flammable. We admit that it's flammable, so we need to use fire suppression and we need to apply gypsum board to it. Is that kind of what you're going at?
SPEAKER_04No, I did pull up a code book just to fact check myself. So type one is fire resistive, type two is non-combustible, type three is ordinary, type four is heavy, heavy timber, and type five is wood frame.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04So it's based on your building code. This is more of like a architectural speak, and you're just making sure that you're satiating the building code official that's reviewing your project. Under your project data, we're typically providing what's the building construction type, type one through five. It's going to fall in one of those categories. And then you have types A and B, but I don't think we really need to get into that right now.
SPEAKER_02Well, and again, for our listeners, what that means is when we talk about construction type, is most homes are type five. Like there's really very little rules around the fire suppression in a single family house. Um, what the construction type is really speaking to is how big you can make it, how tall you can make it, and how many people you can have inside of it. So the more restrictive it is to fire, the more people you can have in it, the taller the building can get. So that's why like high-rise construction is often steel and glass, because they're non-combustible materials. But if we look at using mass timber and wood, we're kind of in this middle ground where it's like it hasn't been fully tested to the extent where we have edification on exactly what the rules are in terms of height and in terms of the limits of the size of the structure. We're still we're getting there right now, which is why when we see something like the first 22-story mass timber building has been constructed in Washington. That's crazy. That's crazy. Everybody's very excited about it because they're the first ones to do it. So we're still testing the waters on this. And I it can't go without saying, and we've talked a lot about fire, but fire is the number one enemy of high-rise buildings, of residential construction. It's the number one source of unfortunate death in buildings. And so we have to think about that as architects. And this has to be a conversation. And we think wood, we're like, oh, fire is a problem, obviously. But what we've covered here today is that it's not as much of a problem as we thought it was because actually these elements are protecting themselves and keeping them up. We just have to build more of them and see more of these coming to fruition so that we can understand the process, just like any testing of anything. Like the more of it there is, the easier it is to have answers to.
SPEAKER_04So something I think that I would be remiss if I didn't touch on is that I don't believe that mass timber construction is the only solution to combat things such as climate change, um, labor shortages, et cetera. It's not a catch-all answer. I think a hybrid building construction typology is probably the best suited way to start and then kind of see where things go because we're in a constantly changing environment and building technology field where we're we our goal is to be innovative and how can we do the best projects for clients and the environment. So, something I do want to touch on is there was a large discussion when I was in Finland around what is the best solution because there are different rules and regulations with the EU, and buildings are actually required to have a life cycle analysis in order to get a building permit in certain jurisdictions and certain countries over in Europe. And part of that life cycle analysis is to see what's the carbon footprint and handprint of a building to make sure that it's it's doing justice to the environment, essentially not off-gassing the way that um uh steel and concrete would. So using wood construction, you're reducing the amount of carbon and you're actually harvesting or sequestering your carbon once that tree is cut. It's going to stay within that member. And then you also have to think about what's going to happen to the building after its life cycle is complete. How can you deconstruct certain pieces of that building and reuse it elsewhere? I think that's a very new discussion that people, in my experience, in all of the lectures that I've been attending, specific to mass timber construction, people are still like, well, this is where we need to go. This is not what we've achieved yet, but this is the goal in the future. So I think that we're not there yet, even in Europe, where it felt like, oh my gosh, in the United States, we're so far behind and it's frustrating. And it seems like Europe just has the system figured out. They actually are subjected to rules so stringent that there was a study completed that if the life cycle analysis was implemented today in Finland, none of the buildings that are existing there would actually be able to get a building permit. So mass timber construction is not the sole answer. We need to think about other construction and sustainable methods such as solar uh energy systems, geothermal systems, and another huge part of that discussion that you need to factor in is the government incentives to support using those systems. Those systems are already uh being factored in to government and tax credits versus mass timber construction is not there yet as well.
SPEAKER_00Uh Joe, one of the things you said at the beginning of this point was both the carbon footprint and carbon handprint as part of that lifecycle analysis. What is a carbon handprint?
SPEAKER_04Carbon handprint is like how is it maybe removing carbon from the environment? So, like your carbon footprint is the actual amount of carbon that the the building is occupying. But the handprint, from my understanding, is what are you actually giving back to the environment? So maybe, maybe taking off some of the the negative off-gassing. Um, I I think that's the that's actually something that I need to do a little bit more studying on. But that was actually the first time that I heard that term was when I went over to Finland and did all of these workshops. I was like, hang on, we always talk about a building footprint. What's the handprint? The handprint is from my understanding, like the beneficial uh components of that to the built environment.
SPEAKER_00So mass timber, then at least as as we can understand it, like very basically ecologically, we are reducing the carbon footprint of buildings by swapping out these synthesized materials for though they they may be processed in some ways, but more natural materials. We're substituting a lot of those steels and concretes for uh wood, which is a sustainable resource, like we talked about earlier. We have the ability to set up farms and production lines where we can sustainably grow and then create these large building components out of those renewable materials.
SPEAKER_04Correct.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um, is there any concern of the glues or adhesives that are used in those processes?
SPEAKER_04Is that like a really good question? Because some that's something that I learned very recently. Uh Lawrence Tech put on a mass timber symposium and had some really great speakers come in. And from my understanding, there's only two types of wood that are approved in building code that can be used. Um, and that's something that of course I would need to do more studying on, but I didn't know how strict these rules were. So something that other people are researching are different types of glues and adhesives that are more environmentally friendly and bio-based materials, but I'm not sure that those are actually approved within code books. So it's all just like how do we work together to make a more environmentally sustainable, eco-friendly building that's also going to meet building codes. That's why I was saying we need to be talking with building officials as part of the narrative and having an open discussion to educate people in how difficult it is for us as people trying to influence the built environment of the world. It's not an easy undertaking. A building is not like a phone. You can't just like update it to the next software system. A building needs to last a long time. And it how can we make that a more environmentally friendly endeavor?
SPEAKER_00So we're we're still on like the cutting edge here of adoption and research and implementation. Like, like Brex said, the first 22-story building in Washington, that's huge news for us. There's some there's an example, there's evidence for us to look at as people who are trying to influence the built environment and people who build buildings and are looking to do this again. That's that's sort of our like we we can watch it happen and kind of hang out with everybody else and monitor it and see how the lifecycle analysis goes and how they're starting how how others are starting to implement it in the US and how we can use that as a springboard for wider adoption and adaptation.
SPEAKER_04Well said. Come with me to Finland next year.
SPEAKER_01Let's start a three-squared office in Finland. Field trips. Okay, so if we had a developer come up to us and just said, hey, what's the highest? I mean, like, what's the best project for us to deliver in the state of Michigan, for example? If we had a project in the neighborhood, what would be the highest and best use for mass timber?
SPEAKER_04Um, I think it would be like we touched on earlier, a hybrid construction.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04So if it was uh a high-rise or multifamily building, the podium and the foundation would likely still be concrete and probably work with steel as your members rather than glue lamps because glue lambs get expensive really quickly. And so large steel members might be more economic than a glue lamb member. So hybrid construction methodologies, working with your contractor to make sure that they're aware of the options and keeping an open discussion, talking with suppliers that can help educate on which options you should use where. I think it's like a very collaborative effort across all parties because there's so many people involved in getting a building built. So the earlier on that you can keep an open narrative, the better it's going to pencil for the developer asking the question.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But I'm sure we could talk at length about this for hours and hours and hours. Yet the podcast has to come to a close. So today we've learned a lot about Mass Timber, uh, what it is, how it can be utilized, what the cost implications are, and that there is a route to government-backed incentives and just an overall support network all around. It's gonna be slow to come to fruition, but I see a very clear path here in ways that other construction types would struggle because we're using a renewable resource. And I think that's that's really something to take home. Um, there are a lot of great mass timber projects. There are a lot of architectural design firms that are heavily utilizing mass timber. Uh, here in Michigan, we know that there are a couple of projects in Detroit that are utilizing it, but uh Michigan State University has been like a huge proprietor of mass timber. They have erected a couple of buildings on their campus with that, and they have a great support network that we have been in touch with as we start to work with this construction type with our clients. So there is a wealth of resources here. We will include that in our links. Uh, Jill mentioned a couple of individuals that she has been communicating with. We will reference them in the show notes on this podcast here. But we want to thank you all for sticking around with us uh to learn more about yet another innovative aspect of real estate, which is a different construction type, utilizing wood in a different way, uh, in a way that makes it more dimensionally stable and uh allows us to utilize it for a number of aspects of a building that we typically would replace with other materials. So, Jill, I want to thank you for your wealth of knowledge and your resources and the education that you have brought yourself as a part of this podcast, but also just bringing your energy to the firm and bringing us a new construction type to work with. Bryce, thank you for deep diving into all the information that Jill has had and bringing some amazing questions. And Leslie, you always bring the development strategy to it and ask the hard questions right up front, which I will always appreciate. So thank you guys for joining us on this episode. We'll see you on the next one. This has been Innovative Real Estate with Three Squared Inc. We'll catch you next time. Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_03Bye-bye. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you found it so valuable you want to connect with us one-on-one, click the link in the description to tell us all about your project so we can help you get started. And to get notified on the next episode here on Innovative Real Estate, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you never miss a beat. Get out there, put today's advice into action, and we will see you in the next episode.