With one of the first mass-timber highrise apartment buildings in the United States about to open, researchers test how wood will stand up to a major Capitol Hill earthquake

The Heartwood under construction. It opens for residents soon at 14th and Union. (Image: Timberlab)

(Image: Nheri ESEC)

The eight-story Heartwood is ready to open above E Union as the first one of the first mass-timber highrise apartment building in the United States. Tuesday, University of Washington researchers will conduct a test simulating a major earthquake on Capitol Hill and how a life-size, larger version of a ten-story, cross-laminated timber building holds up to the shaking of “The Big One.”

CORRECTION: The Ascent in Milwaukee opened in July 2022.

You can watch the test live and see how the building holds up — or doesn’t.

“Mass timber is a new material, so we are testing it in a taller building as a proof of concept and to study if this is actually feasible — there aren’t any buildings in the world that are 10 stories and have structural systems made entirely of timber,” UW Civil & Environmental Engineering Ph.D. student Sarah Wichman said in the university’s announcement about the project.

Unlike the Heartwood which is being readied to open soon for residents at 14th and Union, the test building the UW students are jostling using a giant shake table facility at the University of California San Diego is timber all the way down to its seismic bracing. At Heartwood, the team from DCI Engineers used steel lateral bracing and a concrete foundation to steady the first of its kind building. Continue reading

Seattle U’s Center for Science and Innovation will give school new presence on 12th Ave

The number of science and technology majors at Seattle University is surging, and the school is planning a new building to house them all. The project will continue the school’s recent trend of developing its edges and creating new buildings that connect more solidly to the surrounding neighborhood blocks.

There are about 1,200 students studying STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields at Seattle U right now, said Michael Quinn, dean of the College of Science and Engineering. Quinn expects that number to grow to nearly 1,600 by 2023, about double from the 900 students they’d had in 2009. Continue reading

Fall back Sunday, Capitol Hill


Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour overnight so you’re ready to roll Sunday morning. Why? Ask NASA:

Benjamin Franklin is credited with the concept of Daylight Saving Time. The basic idea is to make the best use of daylight hours by shifting the clock forward in the Spring and backward in the Fall.

Simple enough. Oh, by the way, with what we expect will be a massive pile of Capitol Hill Halloween photos to share, there will be no This week in Capitol Hill pictures this week. Tune in next week!

Welcome to Capitol Island

Screen Shot 2014-01-16 at 1.37.18 PMToday, Capitol Hill only feels like an island. Within 5,000 years, it very well could be one.

Jeffrey Linn, a campus planner at the University of Washington, has created this chart of the waters where the Puget and Washington sounds meet — the Islands of Seattle:

This map is based on real-world information—I created the Seattle sea levels from publicly-available LiDAR data, rendering the rise of the seas in 10-foot increments for the animation, starting at the current shoreline, and ending with the 240-foot level. The Islands of Seattle poster was rendered at 240 feet of rise, which is roughly what would happen if all the world’s ice sheets melted.IslandsOfSeattle20140107_150ppi

Linn says you have at least 5,000 years to prepare. These guys say you might want to buy a boat sooner than that. You’ll also want a map. You can buy one of Linn’s posters here.

Kevin Costner as Jseattle in Capitol Island: The Movie

Kevin Costner as Jseattle in Capitol Island: The Movie