Tag Archives: mass timber

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

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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 →

Design review: Eight stories, mass timber, and within view of Capitol Hill Station

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(Image: CHS)

Revived redevelopment plans for a new project that will demolish E Olive Way’s All Seasons Cleaners will come in front of the East Design Review Board this week a vision for an eight-story mass timber building within sight of the Capitol Hill Station entrance.

The building at 1800 E Olive Way, the corner of Olive and Harvard a block west of Broadway, is home to one of the remaining dry cleaners on the Hill. Back in 2018, the then-busy drive thru laundry and home to one of the Hill’s busiest little weekend flea markets was being lined up for a project that would have risen seven stories and created around 45 apartments, and 3,200 square feet of retail just off Broadway — but longtime business and property owners the Kim family opted not to sell, putting any redevelopment on hold.

Four years later following the pandemic, the opening of hundreds of new apartments above Capitol Hill Station nearby, and an important land use change, plans are back in motion for a building that can now rise eight stories thanks to the new Mandatory Housing Affordability zoning. Continue reading →

With wood truly at its heart, construction permit issued for Heartwood, an E Union eight-story mass timber affordable housing development

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(Image: Atelier Jones)

Heartwood and the eight-story affordable housing development’s first-of-its-kind cross-laminated timber plans has been given the green light by the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

The project will be the first in the city — and possibly the country — to be developed with plans allowing full exposure of mass timber in the structure.

“The project will make use of an innovative, eco-friendly building material: cross-laminated timber (CLT), which lowers the overall carbon footprint of the structure,” the description of the project from Community Roots Housing reads.

The Capitol Hill-based affordable developer says when it opens by early 2023, Heartwood will be one of Washington’s tallest cross-laminated timber buildings. Continue reading →

Proposal for First Hill mass timber high-rise seeks to reach even higher

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An artful rendering of things to come above First Hill (Image: Clark Barnes)

An artful rendering of things to come above First Hill (Image: Clark Barnes)

The COVID-19 crisis and the resulting economic fallout could snuff Seattle’s latest development boom. Or the change might be more complicated and less predictable.

One of the more interesting projects in motion before the crisis is readying to return to the public development process with a plan that has grown in scale despite the uncertainty.

Developer Pryde Development and the architects at Clark Barnes have revised plans for a “mass timber” high-rise planned for First Hill to grow the design to 18 stories — adding six more floors to an already ambitious project.

“The project has elected to proceed with an 18 story, Type IV-A construction type,” the developers write in their updated proposal for the planned development that will replace a one-story 1949-built dental office on Seneca. “The structure will be mass timber, which requires a modular, gridded structural system,” they write. “The wood structure must be fully protected (covered) with gypsum wall board, therefore CLT wood veneer will be used as an interior expression of the wood material.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Housing planning mass timber apartment building on E Union

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An early concept for the planned mass timber project (Image: Atelier Jones)

For years, prime real estate neighboring the brick Helen V apartment building on Union has hosted a surface parking lot used by a few local residents and Capitol Hill Housing vehicles.

On its face, a new eight-story, affordable project set to rise there doesn’t seem much different than the many sprouting on Capitol Hill but there is one major difference. The new building will have a mass timber structural system, which Atelier Jones principal architect Susan Jones says allows for more density. She said that the shift to timber away from concrete or steel made a 114-unit goal for the affordable project possible. Standard construction would have produced only 88.

Mass timber buildings like these are a trend in the Pacific Northwest, Jones says. Continue reading →