For the Trees

Mass timber, a category of engineered wood that includes cross-laminated timber panels and glued-laminated beams, is growing fast as a building material. Pieces of kiln-dried softwood like Douglas fir, cedar, pine, or spruce are bonded and pressed into large, rigid panels or beams, then shipped to job sites and craned into place. Because assembly is quicker than with conventional materials, projects spend less time under construction, which helps offset mass timber's higher upfront costs and shrinks the carbon footprint tied to building.

The material has moved well beyond niche use. It has gone into recreation centers, sports arenas, museums, and even a 25-story tower in Milwaukee. Since 2009, 84 tall timber buildings of eight stories or more have been completed worldwide, with 50 more under construction. In the U.S. alone, 1,384 commercial, institutional, and multifamily mass timber projects have been finished, and multifamily housing now makes up most of the taller projects still in design. The market is projected to more than double by 2032, reaching a value of $3.7 billion, up from $1.5 billion at the start of this decade. Growth has been helped along by code changes that now allow more wood structure to stay exposed in buildings, along with industry groups that support architects and builders working with the material.

For most homeowners, this is background industry news rather than something that affects a single house. It mainly points to where large commercial and multifamily buildings are headed as the construction industry looks for ways to cut embodied carbon, the emissions tied to producing and building with materials.