Posted on 02/01/2015 8:24:31 AM PST by dennisw
Towers of Steel? Look Again
Benton Johnson, an engineer who worked on the report, said that wooden high-rises could help solve the growing worldwide problem of providing adequate housing to the billions of people who are, or will be, living in cities — while also addressing climate change.
“We know that we need to build a lot more buildings,” Mr. Johnson said. “And we know that we need to lower CO2.”
Until now, tall wooden buildings had been championed by a handful of architects and engineers, mostly from smaller firms overseas and in Canada. They welcomed the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill report.
The movement to construct tall buildings largely with wood as an environmentally friendlier alternative to steel and concrete has received a boost from an unusual source — a leading architectural firm known for its towers of steel and concrete.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Chicago-based firm that has designed a long list of skyscrapers, including the new One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, has developed a structural system that uses so-called mass timber — columns and thick slabs that are laminated from smaller pieces of wood. In a report this year, the firm showed how the system could be used to build a 42-story residential tower that would have a lower carbon footprint than a conventional structure.
“We’re tall building engineers,” said William F. Baker, a partner in the firm. “We wanted to see what we can do to help on the sustainability side.” With their system, about 70 percent of the structural material is wood; most of the rest, including the foundation, is concrete.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sure, put millions of the poor in wooden tenement structures. What could possibly go wrong?
Yes, and wooden skyscrapers will probably consume lots of it when they go up in flames.
Loved all our old wooden boats chinking and after haul out they would leak it was fun
Crazy concerns leading to crazy reasoning leading to crazy results.
Might as well claim that wooden towers will keep the dragons away as well as combating man made global warming.
“Benton Johnson, an engineer who worked on the report, said that wooden high-rises could help solve the growing worldwide problem of providing adequate housing to the billions of people who are, or will be, living in cities — while also addressing climate change.”
“OR WILL BE...”
Right in keeping with trying to make the dream of population control/eradication come true on the part of the power elite.
Pinging whenifhow and george76!
Fire
Termites
Tenants chopping up kindling
Mold
Wood rot
Stink
Got it. Leftists are retarded.
All based on a false premise. And every bit of it is wrong.
Those trees that we couldn’t use for grocery bags. Now we can’t plastic bags that replaced the paper ones.
The premise is bogus.
Don’t poor people already live in buildings made out of wood?
Additionally the premise that CO2 is a problem is also bogus.
Ok, I see that...Now what’s the downside?
More importantly, we need to concern ourselves with the threat of starfrost blinkers and build phaluzalas out of billycorn shoots.
Lower CO2 levels ?
I would think all these libtards could help by just stop breathing CO2 out....
Be part of the solution...libtards..
“If," ["the management consultant"] said tersely, “we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy. . .”
“Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect. “Fiscal policy!" The management consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied.
“Fiscal policy. . .” he repeated, “that is what I said.”
“How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know.”
“If you would allow me to continue.. .”
Ford nodded dejectedly.
“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed.
“But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability,, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut."
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down.
“So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances."
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn aloft and it got an appreciative round from the crowd.
-- from Douglas Adams' novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)
Termites? And the walls come tumbling down....
When the lady upstairs puts on her heels and traverses to the kitchen, the downstairs neighbors know it. Don’t even get me started on children. They run everywhere.
Having lived in a wooden 5 story wooden over concrete garage mid rise in Colorado.
yes, for those that think CO is a huge problem, i recommend living only in tall wood frame buildings, especially in San Francisco and LA
As noted above, the premise is wrong. Using wood won’t control CO2. Mammals breath in oxygen, and exhale CO2. Trees breath in CO2 and exhale oxygen. I don’t think Benton Johnson has studied the oxygen/CO2 cycle.
Environmentalists have been (perhaps rightly) seeking to prevent the wholesale cutting down of the rain forests. What does Benton think wooden towers would call for? Wood, right? Where are the most abundant supplies? You guessed it, boys and girls... THE RAINFORESTS!” What happens to the planet if the largest oxygen producers are all cut down in the name of reducing CO2? You got it right again! CO2 BUILDS UP IN THE ABSENCE OF THE TREES!!!!! This would create the very situation he claims he is trying to alleviate.
The “logic” of the left always trips up all over itself, leading to disaster, if allowed to be put into manifestation. There is a reason why one of the most popular treatises before the US Revolution was a thing called “Common Sense.”
(Sorry, george76 and whenifhow, I meant to ping you to my post 7 on this thread!)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.