Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts

Trending in Timber: World’s Largest Structure + Maui’s Mass Timber Housing Recovery

• Brady & Nic

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Will the world’s largest 2-kilometer mass timber structure steal the spotlight at World Expo 2025 in Osaka? How is Maui using mass timber homes to rebuild after the Lahaina fire, offering fast, fire-resistant housing solutions? Plus the HDR Pavilion at the University of Nebraska and Studio Gang's California College of the Arts.

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Nic Wilson:

What do you know about two kilometers of mass timber? Sounds like a lot of timber. What are you talking?

Brady Potts:

about.

Nic Wilson:

It is, so it's the world's biggest timber building. This is going to be unveiled at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, japan all right man, what are you looking at? That's trending in timber this week what do you know about two kilometers of mass timber?

Brady Potts:

sounds like a lot of timber. What are you talking about?

Nic Wilson:

It is. So it's the world's biggest timber building. This is going to be unveiled at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, japan. So in 11 months, this building right here. So right before we started recording, I was like just messing around trying to count the cranes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22. There's 22 in that picture. There was another photo. I swear to God. There was like 35 cranes in the distance, two kilometers circumference, 20 meters high, and it's 60,000 square meters of this wooden ring.

Brady Potts:

Wow, so they're building this specifically for this expo.

Nic Wilson:

Yes, specifically for this, with old Japanese type of carpentry, this Japanese type of carpentry, they don't really use nails or metal, it's all 100% timber and it's beautiful. And you know, I'm sure I can just find a couple more pictures to kind of paint the paint the picture of what's going on here, Like come on can you see this?

Brady Potts:

Yeah, dude, that's going to be huge. How many people do they think they're going to have at this expo?

Nic Wilson:

Let me see. Okay, so it's called the grand ring symbol of the expo 2025, to take place in Osaka next year, one of the largest wooden structures on earth. All right, here we go.

Brady Potts:

I haven't seen this yet it looks like it's got 27,000 cubic meters of wood and that makes it one of the largest wooden structures in the world. And then it looks like it's primarily made out of glue lamb. Is that right? I see some what looks like cross laminated timber up there, but I guess that could be glue lamb panels.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah, for the Americans out there, 20 meters is about 65 feet tall, so so like seven stories towering over you, and the volume so it's about 953 000 cubic feet, so about a million cubic feet of timber so where are they manufacturing all this glulam at?

Nic Wilson:

4500 cubic meters of the glulaminated timber glulam was supplied by wood core. Wood core company, based in naime, fukushima, the meltdown at fukushima nuclear power station triggered by massive 2011 earthquake. It looks like that they recovered that area and they turned it into this timber. Wood core was established in 2018 in a partnership between naimi, based asadaber, and Toju Sengyo Sorry for the mispronunciation A laminate manufacturer based in Koriyama, also in Fukushima. So a leading player in the recovery for the local agriculture and forestry out there. That's awesome.

Brady Potts:

Oh, that's going to be nuts.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah.

Brady Potts:

Do you know if they're going to disassemble this or what are they going to do after the expo?

Nic Wilson:

I don't know. I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe it becomes a site, I know I was looking at another photo and it looked like a big concert venue, like lasers and lights. Yeah, this is huge. Okay, so.

Brady Potts:

Yeah, that's going to be a pretty sweet project and it looks like they're using, like you said, a bunch of traditional Japanese joinery. So they're not using a bunch of steel connectors Although I think I do see some but it looks like they're mostly just doing wood connections.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah, yeah, there, there is some steel joinery in there. I mean no, this is wildly impressive. I lived in Okinawa, japan, for two years and, like God, it's just just. There's. Some of the japanese people are some of the nicest people in the entire world. It's just a really. The traditions, the culture, like their, their um temples, their japanese like just, it's so much fun. They're always doing a festival, I guess, for like every single weekend. Look at this. This looks like a rendering of the top floor. It looks like a rendering of the top floor.

Brady Potts:

It looks like a park on the top. I wonder if they're going to greenscape it up top.

Nic Wilson:

Looks like it.

Brady Potts:

Yeah, all right kilometers of timber structure. That's crazy yeah it's pretty wild, so that's gonna. I mean that's that's showing off heavy timber, slash, mass timber construction to thousands and thousands of people. You know, like the possibilities and what can be done the expo.

Nic Wilson:

The 2025 osaka expo set to be held in osaka, japan, is expected to attract approximately 28 million visitors. This, this can't be right. It runs from april 13th to hold on. How many people will the osaka? Osaka World Expo gather in 2025. 28 million people, look.

Brady Potts:

That's a lot of exposure for some glulam.

Nic Wilson:

Holy cow. I don't even know how to handle that. How do you get 20? Oh, that's right. I think it's across multiple months. Yeah, April 13th to October 13th 2025.

Brady Potts:

Oh, so it's like six months long.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah. Organizers hope to sell 23 million tickets, with 7 million to be purchased by corporations. The expo aims to be the world's knowledge, including cutting edge technology to help resolve global issues and create new ideas. It's expected to attract participation from about 150 countries.

Brady Potts:

Well, that's a big stage for Mass Timber.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah, 20, 28 million people. I don't know what this is. It clicked into and I thought it was the event.

Brady Potts:

Well, I hope they talk a lot about Mass Timber construction. I mean, obviously they got the showcase piece there with that ring, but if it's all about you know latest construction technology and advancements, I hope mass timber plays a big part in their agenda.

Nic Wilson:

Yes, oh, I wasn't even screen sharing that. You guys didn't even see all the 23 million people. It doesn't matter. So what do you got up your sleeve? What do you want to cover?

Brady Potts:

So nothing on quite a grand scale, but I think it's got a huge impact in the mass timber world. So I was on YouTube this morning and my algorithm knows that I'm a wood nerd and so it brought up like a two minute video from an architect in Maui talking about mass timber, and so I just had to check it out. So I started peeling back the layers and, because of the big fire that Lahaina had, uh, they have a huge housing shortage right. So they already had I can't remember how many thousands of housing units, units under what they needed for their demand, and then, of course, when the fire came through, it wiped out like 3000 homes, I think I read, and so they went back even further.

Nic Wilson:

To make sure people know what's going on. We're talking about the Maui fires that just happened. Was that this year? Was that?

Brady Potts:

Yeah, that last fall and so, but anyway, so they have this housing shortage right. Obviously people are displaced and so they need to come back and rebuild their community and there's lots of different solutions and people and partners coming together. But it was interesting to see mass timber play a part in this, and so the headline was bridging Maui's housing gap. Mass timber is fast, durable and fire resistant option, and so I got in here and I started looking around and there's an architect, um architecture firm called Hawaii Off Grid and David Sellers was the gentleman that I saw doing the video on it and he kind of just does an overview of what Mass Timber is, kind of familiarizing people with, uh, the material. But what's unique is's a couple different companies, slash organizations that came together to make this kind of partnership to basically kind of like springboard mass timber construction with the trades people down there, and so at the college they partnered with woodworks and companies like this architecture firm to kind of put on a training center for local carpenters and contractors to get familiarity with mass timber, to help basically speed up the rebuilding of this community. And they partnered with Woodworks and they got funding from the Softwood Lumber Board to do this and this architecture firm actually partnered with an organization right where we are here Helping Maui, so Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

Brady Potts:

They have architecture plans for free, reduced prices, for home plans for people that were affected by the fires, and two of these different plans, uh, are designed with mass timber, and so the first one is the main home, uh, and I'm not going to try and pronounce how the plan, but I'm going to show you guys what it is. So it's a three bedroom, two bath house that is 1,326 square feet, with a garage, slash, carport, and so you can see the layout and everything like this with mass timber. And then it's great because it also has an ADU option that's meant to go along with it, right, and so I'm not sure what the zoning and land use laws down there, but generally you can have a primary residence and an ADU on the same parcel of land as long as you can meet your setbacks and stuff. And so theoretically, somebody could build a home and at least one ADU on the same piece of property, and with these they're mass timber plans.

Brady Potts:

And then I was flipping through some of these different pictures on the main announcement down here and you can see some of the plans and they got pictures of the mock-up that they did at the training for the University of Hawaii for those contractors I talked about. And then I don't know if Spearhead is going to be involved in these new projects, but there are uh imagery that you can see of cross laminated timber panels that were produced by spearhead. I don't know if that's from a different project where they're going to be involved again, uh. And then I jumped into spearheads website and I didn't realize that they were part of the Aspen art museum. That's what this is right.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah, definitely Aspen art museum and um Aspen, colorado, with KLNA engineers and and Builders and Sugar Ubon Architects.

Brady Potts:

That's right, yeah, and so I anyways all different parts of the mass timber world coming together. But I thought it was really interesting because you're hearing a lot of talk and conversation around these big buildings. I know we talked about Google and Walmart and YouTube and the River Mile development all using mass timber but there's a lot of different people working in different parts of the country to bring mass timber into homes and solutions for housing and you can see that in like big residential multifamily buildings, but you're also starting to see it in like smaller single family homes. So you got like the guys down in Durango, colorado, the timber age guys doing stuff from their neck of the woods. You've got these guys out there trying to get mass timber into housing solutions in Maui.

Brady Potts:

I know that there's plans in California to use wildfire damaged areas to reclaim the lumber and then rebuild the homes that get burned down there, like the Sierra Institute, and so there's there's all kinds of different parts of the mass timber world, specifically in the United States, working towards that single family home mass timber option, which is like super prevalent in Europe but hasn't quite made as much of a splash here in North America.

Brady Potts:

But I think it's coming and I think combining the speed and efficiency and prefabricated off nature or prefabricated offsite nature of mass timber to speed up the recovery efforts of these damaged areas is going to be something that I think is kind of an overlooked tool in the mass timber tool belt, if you will. That I think we'll see a lot more of in the future. So, anyway, I just wanted to bring people's attention to what's going on down in Maui and some of the housing solutions that are being put out there, and then give a shout out to the Hawaii off-grid architecture firm and Mr David Sellers for being a champion for rebuilding in the area and then folding in some mass timber.

Nic Wilson:

That's respect, heartfelt wishes to the families out there. And hopefully I mean just as, get it done as fast as you can. Timberline Group posted this New photos of the HDR Pavilion at the University of Nebraska College of Architecture and the partners HDR NAD, aaa I don't know if that's NAD, aaa or NADA. And then the Whiting-Turner oh cool, whiting-turner was the contractors behind this. Here's some of the pictures. So unique, I mean, it's a school of architecture, so it has to be. It's it has to be.

Brady Potts:

And it kind of has like a dual purpose. So yeah, it's another mass timber building, which is awesome, but it's also a school of architecture. So architects are getting literal firsthand exposure to mass timber and I hope the design curriculum is reflective of that, because the more young professionals coming out of school that are exposed to this kind of stuff, it'll be more in their minds, they'll be more familiar with it and they won't have to go and kind of like learn from scratch later down in their career. They're they're already coming out of school, you know, being exposed to this type of stuff, which will only advance the industry.

Nic Wilson:

I think college is so important for that. It's there to expand young kids' eyes. You do that with beautiful campuses and sprawling trees. You go to any college. It's just beautiful, it's well-maintained, it's like a golf course. I think it spurs imagination and dream and so you know and shoot.

Nic Wilson:

I don't know if you've seen the balance books for some of these Ivy league schools on the sum of 50 to a hundred billion dollars, but they have money to spend, and what better way than to make the living environment that the students are in like couple biophilia and science and human imagination, and then let people go free and you know and live and learn in these beautiful environments. But it's, it's so key I mean, someone, someone called them like these, like beacon projects. It's. It's these projects that like you're lost in a storm, you know in a boat and you're looking for the beacon to, you know to guide your, your yourself, back home, and it's like just a war. It's like the Aspen art museum, like the world looks at it and they're like, oh, wow, you can do this, I can do it too, and so I just thought this was a really cool project. So the UNL I thought this was funny. Here's our here's renderings and then look how much better the real world project looks Generally.

Brady Potts:

You can use sub-renderings as much as you want, but in my opinion you're not going to get a better photo than the real deal. Yeah.

Nic Wilson:

So this is just cool. You know Lincoln, Nebraska, so hey, if you're looking for a new college with some mass timber, um, you got an option here. And then, last but not least, studio gang with, uh, you know Jeannie gang and studio gang, they just came out with the um California college of arts and I just thought this was also beautiful. She's always stretching the limits Well, the firm in general with mass timber construction and just architectural in general, and so it's just like the- Well, and this is like another use, excuse me, like you said, like we're talking about two different universities but two different use cases.

Brady Potts:

So the first one's a school of architecture. This one is a school of the arts, right? So not necessarily you know architecture, but you know dance, music, visual media, like whatever you're talking about. This also has that biophilic, creative inspiration type environment that you were talking about, right, and you're, you're basically getting an impact from the built environment on the students learning and then their future uh, involvements, like, if you can, the more you know wood advocates, the people that are living and breathing in these buildings, I think the better, because you're they're just going to go out and do so much more good in the world by spreading awareness of what's going on with these different sustainable building options.

Nic Wilson:

Yeah, it's, it's pretty sweet and they just they unveiled a really cool hotel that you know of, the Populous Hotel in Denver, and it's just she, the studio gang does really just incredible work, but that's kind of that's all we got for today. What do you? What else you got?

Brady Potts:

That's it, man, except for our waitlist for the 2025 Mass Timber Group Summit is open now, so we're taking interested applicants for speakers, sponsors, exhibitors. We have an attendee waitlist. If you're talking, if you're working on something that's really cool and exciting, something that's new and innovative, go hop on that waitlist. Let us know that you're interested in speaking. We're going to release our call for speakers here after the turn of the new year, and so we're really looking for people that are pushing the envelope. Maybe they're working in different asset classes that aren't in the spotlight, like commercial office building or residences. Maybe they're talking about industrial buildings, data centers. Maybe they got something innovative on the cost side of things, different analysis, different things that people haven't really heard of and experienced yet. Those are the kinds of speakers that we're looking for for 2025. So if you're interested in presenting or speaking at the conference, go to our website and submit that form so that we can reach out to you in the new year.

Nic Wilson:

It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to beat last year's. I mean with this lineup Ty Farrow, I mean Sugar Ubon, sugar Ubon Architects, greg Kingsley with KLNA, steve Marshall, mass Timber Strategy, tanya Bachmeier, cornerstone Timber Lab with Taylor Cabot. So we'll be excited for next year. We got a lot of a lot of surprises up our sleeves.

Brady Potts:

And then well, on that note, like we're always looking to get bigger and better. So if somebody has a real inspiring keynote person that they would love to see at the conference, let us know in the comments who we should be reaching out to and building relationships with. All right, that's all I got today.

Nic Wilson:

I think we'll wrap it up. See you next week. All right, sweet.

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