The AWC has conducted a fire test to demonstrate the performance of an exterior wood-frame wall assembly and wood-frame eave soffit designed to resist fire penetrating the structure. Test results are still being analyzed, but it is already clear that “hardening” the structure to resist fire entry is possible with adequate fire-resistive construction details. The need for this evidence is particularly pressing in light of the devastating wildfires in Hawaii that have revived collective interest in the fire performance of wood structures.

The AWC is now working with the testing facility to complete a second round of tests to demonstrate that hardening the structure is a feasible solution to limit damage in severe WUI fires.

STORY 1 of 3

AMERICAN WOOD COUNCIL STORIES

The AWC is proposing a fire-resistance approach to regulate building construction in areas prone to wildfires, known as the wildland-urban interface. There is growing pressure to ban combustible materials in WUIs, but the AWC’s testing shows that wood-frame construction can offer fire protection and that bans are not the only course of action.

Testing Demonstrates Fire Resistance of Wood-Frame Construction in WUI Regions

The AWC’s Fire Service Relations Manager, Ray O’Brocki, offered important balance as well as fire safety best practices in a news story about a fire at a 239-unit apartment project under construction. O’Brocki’s participation in the story provided a crucial counterpoint to comments made by a well-known critic of wood construction. It has since been reported that the contractor violated state fire code by not alerting the fire marshal about construction, neglecting to have a fire inspection done, and not having a standpipe in place to which fire hoses could be connected.

The AWC’s Ken Bland participated in a North Carolina FCRC meeting that included a discussion about ways to improve construction-site fire safety. An amended version of the 2021 International Fire Code will be applicable statewide in early 2025, which includes new safeguards for large buildings, regardless of construction type. Future FCRC meetings are planned for September, and the AWC will continue to monitor and engage as necessary.

STORY 2 of 3

AMERICAN WOOD COUNCIL STORIES

The AWC is stepping up its involvement in fire safety and code revisions in North Carolina following a recent construction site fire, helping to combat misinformation and defend wood’s market share. The AWC is providing expert staff sources to the media, giving input to the North Carolina Fire Code Revision Committee, and continuing to monitor upcoming FCRC meetings.

Assertive Response Reverses
Narrative Around Charlotte Fire

The second full year of EPD life-cycle survey data collection launched in January 2023 and closed at the end of April 2023, compiling data that covers approximately 58% of the total lumber volume produced in the United States. Though this shows progress, it remains shy of the 90% of total lumber volume target. With the support of a USDA Forest Service Wood Innovations Grant, going forward, the database will include non-AWC firms, without additional costs to these manufacturers.

Adding more manufacturers boosts the value of the AWC’s LCA database, particularly as more building material specifiers are looking for EPDs with robust environmental impact data that is compliant with ISO standards. Demand for such data is expected to grow as more and more design teams look to measure the climate impacts of their buildings. With European operators providing detailed EPDs, this SLB-supported tool will deliver a greater level of transparency that is critical to remaining globally competitive.

To complement this work, the AWC has launched a new Wood Sourcing Tool to tell the sustainability story of lumber through data based on a wood product’s mill grade stamp or region. Funded by the SLB and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the first-of-its-kind online tool is designed to help users better understand where their wood products are coming from and the safeguards in place throughout the supply chain to ensure sustainable processes.

The AWC is reaching out to industry again to collect additional data. The second round of data collection began August 21 and closes December 21. Industry participation is vital to make wood products competitive with alternative material choices in the transparency of our environmental impact metrics. If you have questions about the data-collection effort, or would like to take part, please email Anna Ostrander at aostrander@awc.org.

STORY 3 of 3

AMERICAN WOOD COUNCIL STORIES

The AWC is expanding its life-cycle assessment database and recently launched a complementary Wood Sourcing Tool to meet the growing market demand for more specific regional and mill-level environmental product declarations and fiber sourcing data.

Data Transparency Initiative Advances, Validates Lumber's Environmental Advantage

In partnership with the University of Denver Center for Housing and Homelessness Research and the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, the firm has been in the vanguard when it comes to testing and defining trauma-informed design principles. Wood is one of the materials of choice recommended by TID experts like Shopworks, both because of its biophilic design benefits and because the ample use of wood in affordable housing projects helps ensure a building doesn’t feel overly institutional or even inadvertently hostile, which can perpetuate and trigger additional trauma for its occupants.

“TID is the first line of therapy in affordable housing and community projects,” says Shopworks founder Chad Holtzinger, who notes that deinstitutionalizing spaces can be as simple as making warmer, more vernacular material choices using “organic, less industrial materials, such as wood.”

Alongside wood’s environmental and aesthetic benefits, its impact on creating a sense of well-being in a variety of building types is an important factor for architects to consider in their specification decision. Think Wood is elevating the voices of design industry practitioners advocating for the use of wood to create buildings that have a positive impact on occupants, including those in vulnerable populations.

STORY 1 of 3

THINK WOOD STORIES

Trauma-informed design is a relatively new architectural movement focused on creating spaces that promote safety, well-being, and healing—and it cites the abundant use of wood as a key component of its design principles. Think Wood highlighted this trend with a Studio Spotlight—a special downloadable design portfolio—profiling Denver-based Shopworks, a firm that is at the forefront of TID.

Trauma-Informed Design Is an Opportunity
for Exposed Wood Construction

The Think Wood campaign increased its overall content output by nearly 70% in Q2, translating to 636,327 marketing engagements—up 263% QoQ and +143% YoY. Social media performance also continues to trend upward, with engagement nearly doubling across Think Wood’s social platforms over the first two quarters. Unsurprisingly, the increase in total engagements spurred an increase in qualified leads. The program now expects to exceed the lead goals set at the beginning of the year.

Both Q2’s most-clicked newsletter item (2023 Wood Design Awards) and single-topic email (containing a list of mass timber design resources) set new benchmarks for top performance, and the audience showed significant engagement with news, practical tips, and case study content. Along with boosting engagement with building professionals, Think Wood is steadily growing its student audience, priming the next generation of design professionals to build with wood. Along with being attracted by engaging content and publications, architecture and engineering students were drawn in through Think Wood’s Mobile Tour, which stopped in Q2 at the Colorado School of Mines, the University of Southern California, and Boise State University.

Overall, Think Wood’s efforts are increasing engagement and impact with existing audiences, while also continuing to add designers and developers to the database. This combination of new growth and ongoing engagement demonstrates Think Wood’s effectiveness in creating self-educating opportunities for a rapt, ever-expanding audience.

Think Wood released more new content assets in a single quarter than ever before, despite a smaller annual budget. Strong, ongoing engagement of return readers with Think Wood content suggests a boost in self-guided learning. Greater consumption of such content frees up WoodWorks to provide one-on-one assistance to qualified leads that are new to or less experienced with building with wood.

STORY 2 of 3

THINK WOOD STORIES

Higher Content Output Boosts Engagement and Leads

Overwhelmingly, both new readers and loyal returning ones said that interacting with the Think Wood campaign increases their intent to specify wood in their projects. To learn more about their intentions, we’ve added questions to the survey. These queries drill down to more specific information about how they are using both light-frame and mass timber in their existing commercial projects, in what percentage of projects they intend to use wood in the near future, and how the campaign is influencing their decisions to use wood.

Key survey findings include:

• The more Think Wood content consumed, the greater the likelihood that specifiers will build upcoming projects with wood. Fully 68% of highly engaged leads say they expect to specify wood in at least half of their upcoming projects—10 percentage points higher than less-engaged subscribers.

• Even respondents who do not have an upcoming project rely on Think Wood content to remain up to speed on the latest in wood construction and are willing to consider using it in future projects.

• Repeated interaction with Think Wood content caused respondents to be less likely to perceive issues such as cost or supply as barriers to building with wood.

• Ongoing engagement with new Think Wood content proves to be of vital benefit. Conversions are not a one-time event; rather, specifiers are continuously taking on new projects. Engaging with Think Wood’s steady stream of new content plays an important role in keeping wood top of mind.

STORY 3 of 3

THINK WOOD STORIES

Every six months, Think Wood surveys contacts in its database about their use of wood as a structural material. Results indicate our audiences are becoming more sophisticated in their knowledge and use of wood products, particularly when they’ve been exposed to Think Wood content over time.

Survey Shows Correlation Between
Think Wood’s Campaign and Specification

Construction starts and overall square footage of new builds is declining, a trend that is expected to continue to the end of this year—and one that is supported by the third-party economic outlooks of the National Association of Homebuilders and American Institute of Architects. Rising interest rates, reduced liquidity, and constraints on large-scale financing are adding to the slowdown.

As a result, WoodWorks is reducing its total 2023 forecast of wood demand created from project influence from 882 MM BF to 765 MM BF, a 13% reduction. Despite these headwinds and the smaller square footage of the projects being influenced, the number of projects continues to increase, with 129 directly influenced this quarter—the highest quarterly total in the last three years—showing that the SLB's pursuit of increasing wood market share continues.

In response to the ever-volatile construction market, WoodWorks will continue to promote the use of wood in a wider range of project types, looking for opportunities where light-frame or mass timber assemblies can replace more conventional building systems.

STORY 1 of 3

WOODWORKS STORIES

WoodWorks has influenced and converted 252 projects year-to-date and is on pace to achieve the year-end projects goal of 504—a goal that represents an 8% increase from the 465 converted in 2022. But unfavorable macroeconomic trends are pushing down BF projections.

Q2 Marks a Record Quarter for Project Support Despite Economic Headwinds

The GC is a major player in the North American market, with more than a dozen mass timber projects completed or underway across the United States. Working directly with a general contractor with a huge sphere of influence provides an excellent opportunity to create trained mass timber construction teams at scale, helping to overcome one primary barrier to designing with mass timber.

The company’s Director of Mass Timber and Prefabrication told WoodWorks he sees value in keeping these two closely related structural trades on the same page with mass timber.

“We have composite crews composed of ironworkers and carpenters with varying levels of experience . . . [it is] beneficial to have everyone in the same place discussing common items/situations that come up on jobs. I think your presentations and materials are great because they outline all of the common scenarios encountered,” he said.

STORY 2 of 3

WOODWORKS STORIES

After connecting with the mass timber leader for an international general contracting firm at the 2023 International Mass Timber Conference, WoodWorks set up a hybrid mass timber installation curriculum presentation at the firm’s Seattle office in May. The total attendance was 41, with 29 participating in person and 12 from the Portland office.

Global GC Turns to WoodWorks for Mass Timber Training

Janicki began attending structurally focused WoodWorks webinars and, in early 2022, reached out to a Regional Director with initial questions on the warehouse. He wanted to discuss approaches to diaphragm and shear wall design for high loads.

The WoodWorks Regional Director and a Senior Technical Director shared various considerations and provided Oregon’s Statewide Alternative Method for additional guidance. As the design progressed, WoodWorks continued to provide support on topics such as area provisions, fire design considerations, and acoustics.

Warehouse and big box facilities are an area of interest after WoodWorks supported 23 factory/industrial buildings in 2022, up from 14 warehouses in 2021. A 2023 forecast commissioned by the SLB from Forest Economic Advisors found that the warehouse and distribution center category is seeing unexpected growth and projected an incremental opportunity of 140 MM BF in the category, proving that wood is starting to compete more with traditional materials in that sector.

In Q2 2023, Janicki and WoodWorks co-hosted a tour of the Janicki Industries warehouse for about 60 architecture, engineering, and construction professionals as part of WoodWorks’ educational programming. Janicki has also become an engaged member of the WoodWorks Innovation Network (WIN).

STORY 3 of 3

WOODWORKS STORIES

WoodWorks helped Jordan Janicki, Principal Structural Engineer with DCG/Watershed, realize a vision for a mass timber industrial facility. The result is a replicable 185,000-square-foot Type V-B mass timber warehouse and two-story office structure that sequesters carbon and features CLT and glulam panels, as well as glulam trusses, representing an average of 14.3 BF/SF in the project.

Featured Project: Janicki Industries Warehouse, Hamilton, Washington

The Wood Institute’s diverse range of educational offerings plays an essential role in persuading and educating building professionals to build with wood. A single course ensures the user spends 60 minutes deeply immersed in credible, fact-based content about wood design and construction—with most users taking more than one course.

There was significant growth in new accounts created this quarter across all four major professions, measured year-over-year: code officials (over 285%), engineers (over 65%), architects (over 62%), and contractors (over 35%).

Moreover, the Wood Institute continued to gain faculty members and student coursetakers, who created twice as many new accounts compared with the same period in 2022.

An ever-growing catalog of courses provided by the AWC, Think Wood, WoodWorks, and other key partners, now clocking in at 186, represents one of the largest single collections of professionally accredited coursework on wood topics available to the AEC community—and helps to ensure that wood products are fairly evaluated alongside other structural materials.

STORY 1 of 3

SLB EDUCATION STORIES

Key Wood Institute metrics broke records for another consecutive quarter.
New accounts grew steadily and surged on an annualized basis by over 70%,
owing to very strong performances in April and May.

Online Education Hits New High
For Another Consecutive Quarter

During the tour, the students observed the various stages of lumber production and learned about sustainable practices in the construction industry. They also visited a wood products facility to see the variety of products available and gained a better understanding of how material selection affects design.

“This particular group of architecture students from Texas A&M was by far one
of the best and most engaged groups we have ever hosted. You could tell there was a lot of groundwork established to create excitement regarding wood construction, particularly new products such as CLT and glulam beam advancements,” said Chris deMilliano, Operations Manager at Steely Lumber,
one of the facilities toured.

The field trip allowed these budding architects to connect theory with practice: The students were enrolled in a summer design studio and incorporated this newfound knowledge and inspiration into classroom designs for wood buildings—and ultimately they will be able to extrapolate this enthusiasm for wood solutions when they enter professional practice.

STORY 2 of 3

SLB EDUCATION STORIES

A group of students from Texas A&M’s School of Architecture got a firsthand look at the products they will one day specify as part of Education’s student engagement initiative. The event is an example of the program’s approach of engaging future professionals early, ensuring practitioners begin their career with an intrinsic preference for wood systems.

Architecture Students Experience
Lumber Production Firsthand

“The Timber Engineering Faculty Development Workshop at Clemson University was not just an event; it was a catalyst for growth, collaboration,
and innovation,” said Weichiang Pang, Professor of Engineering at Clemson.

The faculty workshops were funded with support from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities. The SLB is looking to expand the program in 2024.

The workshops were led and facilitated by experts from academia, professional practice, and industry who are at the forefront of wood design and construction. They were hosted by the Tallwood Design Institute (TDI), a partnership between University of Oregon and Oregon State; Clemson University’s Wood Utilization + Design Institute; and UMass Amherst in partnership with Leers Weinzapfel Associates.

Participants had the opportunity to engage in hands-on activities, tours of facilities, and discussions with industry professionals. The workshops covered topics such as design exercises, fabrication processes, sustainable forest management, and the benefits of mass timber in educational buildings.

STORY 3 of 3

SLB EDUCATION STORIES

A total of 52 faculty from 42 architecture and engineering programs across the United States participated in three SLB-funded faculty workshops, where instructors learned how they could better integrate wood systems into their own academic programs.

Meeting Demand for Faculty Training in Wood Design

Overall, demand for housing, and in turn lumber, remains resilient in the face of higher mortgage rates. Sales of newly built single-family homes jumped in May to the highest level since February 2022, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. That marks a 12.2% increase from the previous month.

Interviews with key buyers identified four trends boosting the demand for MSR lumber by 2035, with the increased interest in mass timber topping the list. Along with the growing demand for products like cross-laminated timber and glued-laminated timber, FEA noted greater use of premium classes of lumber for roof trusses, wider use of open-web floor trusses and a greater occurrence of mid-rise (five to six story) light-frame wood construction as additional market drivers. Contact info@softwoodlumberboard.org to request a copy of the report.

STORY 1 of 5

SLB STORIES

New research from Forest Economic Advisors commissioned by the SLB explores the state of the markets for machine stress rated (MSR) lumber. The report found that MSR lumber markets are expected to grow 15% by the end of 2023, 12% in 2024, and 14% in 2025—buoyed by a rising demand for mass timber.

MSR Offers Growth Opportunity
for Softwood Lumber

Some critical highlights of the survey findings: 

• The wood products industry is highly regarded, and as a material, wood is largely viewed as warm and welcoming, with older people and homeowners driving this trend.

• Three-quarters of respondents agreed that wood is a building material that creates good-looking buildings.

• There is ample opportunity to shape people’s views of wood. The survey responses suggest that people come to favor wood when presented with facts related to its sustainable benefits when compared with other more carbon-intensive materials.

• When exposed to positive eco-friendly facts about wood, the number of people who believe wood is the best choice grows from 16% to 48%.

The report will offer invaluable insights as the SLB and partners develop and fine-tune communications strategies and messaging.

STORY 2 of 5

SLB STORIES

Nearly two-thirds of Americans and Canadians have a favorable view of wood products and the forest products industry. That’s just one of the key findings of a survey commissioned by the SLB and conducted by Bully Pulpit Interactive. The report, based on more than 3,500 interviews, offers critical insights into how wood is perceived as well as how the industry can shape those views.

New Study Reveals Positive Attitudes Toward Wood Construction

Researchers held a media day on May 9 for two tests in which the building was subjected to shaking equivalent to the 6.7-magnitude Northridge Earthquake that struck Los Angeles in 1994 and the 7.7-magnitude Chi Chi Earthquake in Taiwan in 1999. A media outreach campaign supported by the SLB and other project stakeholders earned coverage for the successful test in national media, local media, and AEC trade publications such as Engineering News-Record, which provided a detailed look at the extensive engineering expertise that went into the project.

Along with AEC professionals, the SLB provided funding for 10 insurance professionals—including brokers and underwriters—to attend a WoodWorks mass timber insurance workshop in conjunction with the shake table test. The workshop focused on educating the insurance industry in an effort to remove barriers related to insuring tall wood buildings during construction and post occupancy. WoodWorks held an additional workshop at the test site for engineers to see the resilience of the material up close. The results of the testing process—which WoodWorks President and CEO Jennifer Cover calls “a sharpening of the pencil” for building with mass timber in seismic zones—could pave the way for changes in building codes for residential and commercial structures that could lead to more widespread adoption of mass timber as a sustainable, strong, and versatile building material.

STORY 3 of 5

SLB STORIES

Seismic resilience testing of a 10-story mass timber structure was completed in May at the University of California, San Diego, as part of the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure TallWood Project. The industrywide initiative to prove the seismic resilience of mass timber and its strength as a low-carbon structural building material is being supported by the SLB, Think Wood, WoodWorks, the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, and other industry partners.

Taking Tall Timber Seismic Testing to New Heights

The SLB, along with the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, contributed supporting funds to two Wood Innovations Grant Program recipients, Timber Age and PathHouse, to design, ship, and construct prefabricated demonstration wood structures for this event. The recipients exhibited alongside structures and education pavilions funded by concrete, plastic, and other competing industries.

“These projects offer a practical, hands-on demonstration of the benefits of prefabricated timber systems,” said Kevin Naranjo, National Program Manager, Mass Timber and BIL Programs, for the U.S. Forest Service. “From forest to factory to finishing, these structures show how offsite manufacturing of wood products from sustainably managed sources can be shipped to site and assembled quickly—getting families into quality-built homes sooner, while cutting costs and mitigating the risk of catastrophic wildfires.”

WoodWorks and Think Wood provided promotional assistance and personnel to staff the exhibits, while the AWC led guided tours of the wood structures. The exhibits were open to the public for the duration of the event and drew professional, government, and general public attendees.

STORY 4 of 5

SLB STORIES

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Innovative Housing Showcase is a three-day event, attracting over 2,500 building professionals and featuring new building technologies and housing solutions that are making housing more innovative, resilient, and affordable for American families.

Innovative Housing Showcase
Features Prefab Wood

The SLB is helping fund a growing number of market-expanding innovations
in partnership with the USDA Forest Service. This includes the Mass Timber Competition: Building to Net-Zero Carbon and USDA Forest Service Wood Innovation Grants.

This includes a 14-story wood development in Madison, Wisconsin, dubbed Baker’s Place. Think Wood recently featured the developer, Nate Helbach of The Neutral Project, in a Q&A where he talked about how such low-carbon mass timber projects are of increasing interest to discerning investors. Another one-of-a-kind project to receive funding was an all-wood, three-story building in Portland, Oregon, designed by Waechter Architecture, demonstrating just how much of a building can be constructed using exposed timber components.

In addition to these two projects, blast testing research conducted by science and engineering consulting firm Karagozian & Case is being funded to investigate whether reinforced CLT can meet Department of State protective-design requirements cost-effectively. It’s expected this research will be able to show how mass timber can be used to build blast-resistant structures, opening new markets for building types such as courthouses, embassies, federal facilities, and emergency call centers.

And August saw the launch of a CLT design tool developed by structural engineering firm Equilibrium. The interactive spreadsheet helps engineers design CLT floors, roofs, and walls to meet the latest building codes and standards with greater speed and accuracy.

The $2 million Mass Timber Competition helps expand the use of mass timber building solutions by providing project teams with funding to overcome barriers to the use of the material, most notably the costs of analyzing design and engineering alternatives and verifying that these solutions comply with applicable codes. The winners of the 2023 competition will be announced in a ceremony held at the REFRAMED Exhibit in Chicago this October 19.

Of the 2022 cohort, the Evergreen Charter School in Hempstead, New York, became the first to break ground. The 85,000-square-foot, five-story hybrid CLT building will expand the possibilities of mass timber in education by demonstrating how mass timber can provide a warm, inspiring, and biophilic environment for students while remaining cost-competitive with alternative construction types.

Several projects funded in previous years by USDA Forest Service Wood Innovations Grants and supported by matching funds from the SLB are making significant progress—opening up new market opportunities for the softwood lumber industry.

STORY 5 of 5

SLB STORIES

The SLB and U.S. Government Fund Market-Expanding Innovations