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General Architecture & Design Discussion

I've always wanted Edmonton to get something made of CLT or mass timber. I think these buildings are excellent to look at and are also far better for the environment as they both don't require the pouring of large amounts of concrete and sequester carbon themselves. If the wood is cut from a sustainably managed forest it is essentially as good as it can get from an environmental perspective. Also, when talking about CLT, many often comment that it will burn easily, however if treated properly and built correctly, CLT is actually very flame resistant. It seems the Nordic countries are the best at this. For those concerned about cost, it is estimated that mass timber structures cost up to 6.43% more than regular concrete however some sources I've found say that they are actually less expensive than regular reinforced concrete, sources differ. I'm going to even it out and say that it costs about the same. So considering all the benefits of mass timber, why hasn't it been adopted widely across countries like Canada where wood is so plentiful? Maybe someone who's a bit more knowledgeable could enlighten me? Maybe it has something to do with the workforce being trained primarily in traditional concrete construction?

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erudyk_29 said:
So considering all the benefits of mass timber, why hasn't it been adopted widely across countries like Canada where wood is so plentiful
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One of the main problems is CLT production -- or rather lack thereof (although that may be rectified over time) -- and the other is quality control at the factory level. Recently I have had discussions with Western Archrib (Edmonton) and their production manager about gearing up for CLT production at their facility; Western Archrib has long been a producer of Glulam and GLT structural components and I thought that they would be a natural to make the transition to CLT products. After many discussions with their production foreman, the decision was made not to delve into the world of Cross-Laminated Timber, the rationale being that the company was not set up to do it and their Glulam/GLT business was so strong that there was no incentive to expand in that other direction. I then spoke with a couple of CLT startups in BC and they were so backlogged with orders that they couldn't commit to my projects for over a year. There are also a couple of startups in Quebec but friend and business associate Doug Cardinal tried one of them on a "northern" project and their work at the time was substandard compared to a German company that he had previously dealt with. In my mind there is a huge potential here for an enterprising Alberta company to get into the fray -- it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg conundrum however -- do you build a factory and hope for work in the Provincial marketplace or do you engender work of your own making (some of these 6-storey apartment structures are suited to that end) and create a design/build company using your own product -- there should be a huge financial advantage for the latter. Alberta has the ideal native forest for softwood CLT -- I have harped on this on Skyrise many times over the past several years.
 
I've been to Winnipeg a couple times in the last few months and my honest take away from spending time there is that their architecture blows Edmonton's out of the water. I'm also not even talking about old stuff which they do better, it seems like all of their new 6-12 story apartments have a way better more unique finish to them compared to here where everything is very generic and in lots of cases pretty cheap looking.
 
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