Benefits to builders of Texas-grown wood highlighted at CRS Center conference
A building material with the potential to significantly impact the design and construction of structures in Texas was the focus of a Feb. 9, 2022 symposium hosted by the CRS Center for Leadership and Management in the Design and Construction Industry.
Symposium speakers included James Michael Tate, Texas A&M assistant professor of architecture, and an advocate of cross laminated timber (CLT) — a versatile, sustainable, prefabricated, solid engineered wood panel gaining popularity with builders — that’s made of southern yellow pine.
CLT panels were developed in Europe in the 1990s. They quickly became popular there because they are well-suited for construction in floors, walls, ceilings, roofs, as well as infrastructure at large construction sites. These benefits are leading to increasing usage by North American builders.
The bright future of CLT includes an opportunity for the Texas forestry industry.
“Until recently, CLT panels were made only with Douglas fir or spruce from Canada or Europe, not southern yellow pine, which is sustainably forested in Texas and the American Southeast,” said Tate.
“Southern yellow pine is abundantly available and can be transported in less than four hours from Houston, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, San Antonio and Austin. These short transportation distances are significant environmental considerations,” he said.
Wood processing also emits much less carbon, a greenhouse gas, than concrete or steel, he said.
CLT panels also present digital design opportunities as well as the prospect of simplified procedures at the construction jobsite.
“Many construction materials require intensive labor, but CLT panels can significantly reduce that demand,” said Tate. “It allows industrial design manufacturing levels of precision, but at a building scale.”
Tate demonstrated some of the possibilities of southern yellow pine-made cross-laminated timber with a piece he made that was on display in the Langford A pit during the symposium.
The piece, “CLT Construct #1,” was originally created for display at a recent meeting of the Texas Forestry Association in Nacogdoches, Texas. Tate created it in a partnership with Aaron Stottlemyer, a forest resource analyst at the Texas A&M Forest Service.
“It was the first time forestry industry professionals interacted with something designed and built using southern yellow pine CLT panels,” said Tate. “The meeting drew a large group of foresters, loggers, and additional industry leaders from the East Texas Piney Woods.”
Tate, who built the piece at the College of Architecture’s Automated Fabrication & Design Lab at the RELLIS Campus, looked to illustrate some of CLT’s possibilities to the forestry professionals’ gathering.
“I showed how panels might be pre-cut in a factory, shipped flat, and then quickly assembled onsite,” he said. “This ‘rapid deployment strategy’ is something that would be advantageous when replacing housing destroyed by a hurricane, for example. Also, CLT panels are more durable and resilient, than light woodframe 2×4 framing.”
