Buildings account for 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions, indicating an urgent need for environmentally sound and cost-competitive building prototypes.i Mass timber buildings act as carbon sinks through CO2 storage and high LCA profiles (lower emission of greenhouse gases, less air and water pollution and lower waste than concrete and steel) and have recently been vetted for high-rise construction by the International Building Code.ii The adoption at scale of mass timber systems could stimulate regional forestry and manufacturing (e.g., by utilizing New England’s overgrown forests to supply Boston's extreme housing demand), increase urban density, and gradually reverse the carbon output of cities.iii Yet, at
present, mass timber systems remain nationally inaccessible as a technology—partly due to the unfamiliarity of project stakeholders (developers, contractors, lending institutions and governing authorities) regarding the logistics surrounding mass timber.
Despite New England’s unique position to supply its construction market with high-quality wood products, there are currently no CLT plants on the East Coast of the US. The rapid adoption of mass timber building solutions—even in progressive cities like Boston—is presently hindered by two co-dependent obstacles. First, the US lacks built examples of mass timber projects. Developers and investors have few precedents
on which to rely in order to gauge costs, time savings, labor capacity and jurisdictional acceptance. Second, the current process of designing buildings is inconducive to the application of mass timber—which explains low demand for the material. While de-risked materials such as concrete and steel are easily adapted in later project stages, in order for mass timber to be utilized economically, it must be considered in the early stages of development. This is because mass timber structures currently require a uniquely high level of upfront coordination, cost estimation, design integration, and manufacturer liaisons.
This proposal aims to overcome these two obstacles by:
1) Hosting developer educational outreach events to solicit the implementation of mass timber.
2) Conducting follow-up meetings with developers who have suitable projects for mass timber.
3) Selecting developer organizations and performing mass timber building solution test-fits.
4) Creating concept packages for developers to issue to lending institutions to solicit funding.
5) Providing Massachusetts governing authorities with costing, carbon and development data.
6) Pursuing the construction of catalyst projects.
Under the 2018 USDA grant, our MIT-Harvard team collaborated closely with industry and government partners to develop an extensive catalogue of cost-effective, replicable mass timber building solutions, which have been applied to numerous projects in the Northeast. In 2020, these building solutions will be integrated into our first catalyst project, approved for construction: a 20,000 sf, full CLT cellular timber building in South Boston, which will be one of the most sustainable buildings in the US. It will meet Passive House standards by generating more electricity than it consumes, and will function as a carbon sink by reducing operational and embodied emissions. Our team expects to advance more such projects into construction by way of our pre-vetted building solutions and generative tools, while leveraging our close collaboration with the Binational Softwood Lumber Council and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
By democratizing mass timber systems, our MIT-Harvard spin-off—Generate LLC—will have contributed not only to the sustainable development of American cities, but to the health and restoration of forests in the Northeast, to the catalyzation of the wood-products market, and to the advancement of the mass timber demand and supply chains in the region.
1) Hosting developer educational outreach events to solicit the implementation of mass timber.
2) Conducting follow-up meetings with developers who have suitable projects for mass timber.
3) Selecting developer organizations and performing mass timber building solution test-fits.
4) Creating concept packages for developers to issue to lending institutions to solicit funding.
5) Providing Massachusetts governing authorities with costing, carbon and development data.
6) Pursuing the construction of catalyst projects.
