Why Hybrid Is the Future of Mass Timber (Expert Panel)

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Mass timber needs steel, and steel needs mass timber. This episode is a panel on hybrid mass timber construction: where CLT, glulam, and cold-formed steel contribute to industry growth, and why hybrid systems are how mass timber scales in North America. It covers what actually drives cost in a mass timber building, how to control fiber volume and connection design, why standardizing connections and erection the way the steel industry already has with AISC is the next step, and how composite crews of ironworkers and carpenters erect mass timber faster and safer than a single trade. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Mass timber needs steel, and steel needs mass timber. These two don't grow by beating each other. They grow together through hybrid structures, and just as much through hybrid teams. When this happens, the design gets more efficient, the build goes smoother, and the owner walks away impressed with what both materials can do. And then they come back and build the next one the same way. That repeat business is how mass timber is gonna scale. And scale is what turns it into real impact. On carbon, on housing, on forest health, the stuff that everybody in this industry says they're here for. To get into all of that, I've got four people who sit in different seats at the same table. Nick Milestone is the COO of Mercer Mass Timber, and he came up to the structural steel world before moving into timber. He says that the fastest path to scale isn't pure mass timber, it's hybrids that drop into the workflows that the steel industry already runs on, meaning CLT decks on a steel frame. Woldform steel and CLT can take mid-rise structures past the height where wood taps out and go after concrete structures directly. And Greg Kingsley is the current director of RD and the past president and CEO of KLNA, one of the most respected and experienced firms in both steel and mass timber engineering. He says that standardizing how the buildings go together, i.e. the connections in the erection sequence, is something that the steel industry has already done and something that the mass timber world can greatly benefit from. Kobe Faust is a fourth generation ironworker whose company erected the Walmart Headquarters campus, the largest mass timber project built in North America so far. And he's one of the earliest ironworker companies to move into mass timber. His point is the core piece of this episode. Those hybrid buildings need a hybrid crew, ironworkers and carpenters. Each brings unique skills and efficiencies to mass timber projects that make them successful. And Tom Bond, he came up on the manufacturing side and now consults across both worlds. He makes the case that the all-timber showpieces are the one percenters. The other 90%, the real market potential for mass timber, is hybrid. And getting good at those types of buildings means getting comfortable, being uncomfortable. If you're designing, engineering, or building with mass timber, this is a conversation you need to hear. Because the future isn't all timber or all steel, it's both the right material in the right place, put up by a crew that works exactly the same way. The building's a hybrid, so is the team that builds it. But before we start, if you're getting something out of this show, our newsletter will keep you up to date on what's happening in the mass timber world, and our annual summit is where you get to connect with leaders in the industry. Both are linked below. Alright, let's get into it. Today we're going to talk about mass timber hybrid systems and what that means for the mass timber industry here in North America moving forward. And so my first question is going to be for you, Nick. You've watched mass timber grow a little bit more widespread and be more adopted across multiple different countries with some uh slower starts than others. We'll say, what's the pattern that you're seeing on those markets that did take off?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

So uh let's look at Glulam, which is deemed a mass timber product. GLU LAM is nothing new. Uh, it's been around for a hundred years plus. The first ever Glue Lamb building was uh in 1896 in the registry office in Southampton. Um it's evolved through gluing technology and manufacturing technology, but what has really sort of changed the dynamics of mass timber is cross-laminated timber, CRT panels, which came out of Austria in the early 2000s for the Austrian housing market. And what you see there is a sustainable business model uh based on demand. Uh, that is about the availability of fibre, that's the availability of um technical aspects, the availability of engineering, construction uh, and manufacturing. And it's kind of grown outside of Europe as a sustainable market. It was no surprise that when it kind of hit the shores in the US in around 2013 to 2016, it was the start of the evolution of the mass timber industry in North America, which is the only true sustainable market outside of Europe, that being Canada and the US. And I think it and I've I've been involved in mass timber projects, say in the Middle East and Far East, and these are very spot markets. Uh, when I say by spot markets, they're one-off projects because it's about the behavior of um the region of the planet. Is the timber accessible? Um, it's often reliant on you know cheap labour and concrete, which is the default build system, if you like, and the demographics, the population and the building typology as well. Um, mass timber suits or lower-framed structural solutions and not maybe high-rise 30-40 stories of where steel and concrete can grow. But if you also look on the planet, say places like Australia and New Zealand, again, it's about a sustainable uh model where you've got call it advanced democracies that has uh social impact, the use of green technology combined with off-site technology combined with minimum wage, then you kind of get that mixture of where the where the application of the building typologies that will accept mass timber come from. So it's not about where it hasn't failed, it's about the adoption rate. And you've got to bear in mind that we're only 26 years into this journey because CLT has been the true disruptor. Glow Lamb's kind of followed in its path to play catch-up with it.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

All right. Greg, how does that compare to what you've seen uh in here in the States and maybe even North America-wide and like where we're at right now as a as an industry?

SPEAKER_05 6:02

Well, I don't have anything like the international perspective that Nick has, but um, but looking locally, I can I can definitely reinforce that here the thing that caught on um that really worked um and and really I I speak from the demand side, right, on the design side of the equation, right? And the thing that really caught on was the number of problems that mass timber uh solved all at once. We just started pretty recently thinking about embodied carbon and biogenic carbon, even biophilic sort of atmospheres from you know that that uh architects uh have been really pushing for. Um uh those things got everyone's attention really quickly. And then there's this little bit of a novelty and a newness factor that's got everybody excited about it as well. Um and so on on that side, um, I'll say what worked is, I mean, massive interest in the architectural and ownership community in in moving things forward. But I'll also say that when it um it doesn't always work, and when it hasn't worked, it's sometimes when people try to put um mass timber um sort of the square peg in a round hole, right? When when they just get so in love with the idea of mass timber and all those things that I just listed that it's that you know, that it does well, that they try to hammer it into any building that they're working on. Um and so when it works and when it works really well and takes off in our experience is when there's this alignment between the material itself, what it does, what it naturally does well, um, and the building form and you know, uh the the form, the function, and so on, where you just respect the behavior of the material and how it works, right? Along with other materials as well. I think we're here to talk a little bit about, you know, hybrid construction, and that's a big piece of it, where you use mass timber where it's best and where it's best suited. And in that regard, then it really has taken off for us. So we've you know we've seen quite a number of successful projects and a lot of them have that in common.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Real quick, if you're getting value from this podcast, you should join us at the Mass Timber Group Summit. Every year we bring together the design, build, and ownership teams that are pushing Mass Timber forward for three days in Denver. It's a pretty networking forward event, and our sessions focus on the newest and most innovating topics that'll help you stay ahead in the industry. Everybody leaves with connections that'll move their business and their projects forward. Click the link below or go to MassTimber.group to get registered. And so it's a a combination of market meets opportunity, but respecting how the different materials play together, like especially in a hybrid building. Um, one question I have is the the building industry in general is a little bit slow to adopt newer technologies, but the ones that do come up, generally there's uh some spectacular flameouts, right? Um, whether that's through modular, um different off-site systems, etc. And so my question for Nick is what makes a mass timber manufacturer successful, financially healthy, and is like the biggest determinant of longevity? Like how do we make sure that this disruptor um is around for a long time and it doesn't go by um the wayside?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Uh listen to the market. Listen to, and it goes back to what Greg said, it's about market demand. What is the market asking for? There's an evolution. And like you just said to that point of saying modular. Uh you know, I've seen many modular companies come and go, it doesn't have to be just in mass timber, all forms of timber frame, cold form steel, pre-cast concrete. Um it that's the build system. The way mass timber fits in perfectly is to adapt to its landscape. So if we if we if I use my experience in the UK, it was quite a simple evolution of just replacing uh the pre-cast concrete or the metal deton concrete floor solutions with CLT on a steel frame. That was just a straight win and an easy win, and and it and it uh it ticked all the right boxes for speed of construction, uh schedule benefits, lightness, everything else. And it's about listening to what the market wants and giving back the solution. Don't go to the market with um reinventing the wheel, the market will not buy it. That's what doesn't make it sustainable. And we're seeing that change now. You know, we've seen um since my first involvement this side of the world in 2016, so here we are 10 years later. We're starting to see now the steel industry embrace mass timber as you know the the the the the one company that will form the solution. So rather than bring in multiple subtrades of a mass timber man uh installer or a steel installer, no just one company will define all the logistics and piece count and it works symbiotically. And we learnt in the steel industry that mass timber adopts beautifully because it's and I use the term symbiotic, um, it's designed, manufactured, and installed within sixteenth of an inch tolerance. And if it fits in the model, it fits in the job site and it's pre-fabricated with zero waste. We we don't give enough kudos to the steel industry. The steel industry found you know came to life in the 1960s as the industrial revolution behind concrete, but it was the original off-site solution, and with the advancements in technology and prefabrication and the fact that we use the same business process and the same modeling techniques as the steel industry does, then that's why it just works beautifully. But for a manufacturer to be um truly sustainable, it has to adapt to the market by supporting uh engineering support by offering manufacturing drawings, by even offering install solutions. It's about being everything to everybody. The market will change over the coming years for sure, and manufacturers will go to more of a semi-commodity kind of world where it's just producing CRT. But right now you have to be very, very versatile and adaptable to what the market is asking for.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

And so I heard you talk about symbiotic relationships, and I think I heard you give an example of like decking, right? Using CLT in place of the decking. Um, and maybe this is a dumb question, but if you're a mass timber manufacturer, like the the lifeblood of your company is panel throughput. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Absolutely. It's volume, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

And so if if we're looking at the symbiotic relationship right now and working with the steel industry that looks like the decking side of things, um, is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Oh, absolutely. And I'm not doing glue lamb um any sort of disrespect, far from it. You know, glue lamb is is good for say uh a small office, a two say two-story office building. But when you've got um a building that's maybe 10, 20, 30 stories in structural steelwork, then you're not gonna get Glue Lan to stand up to those kind of heights and those compressions. So therefore, CLT becomes the obvious defined choice of material. It's about working with each other to come up with solutions. Uh Greg kind of alluded to it earlier on. If you're trying to put mass timber into places where you can't make it stand up, and we do have purists out there that want 100% mass timber, well A, your design is going to be very hard to justify, but secondly, nobody's gonna pay the cost. And it's all about cost versus carbon. And the amount of CLT that goes into a building with the steel frame, one actually offsets the other to make it an actually carbon neutral structural solution.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

And so if if we're looking at CLT as that that disruptor, that lifeblood, that symbiotic relationship, Greg, in your experience, who's having that this conversation on the project teams? Is it starting with the manufacturers? Does it start with somebody on your team? Like where are you hearing that start?

SPEAKER_05 14:01

Well, you have to know that I I'm a designer and I wear designer glasses. And so everything starts with us. So you know that's that's the beginning of everything. Um and uh so actually that's where those first conversations are hap happening, right? And it's actually why um uh it's really so good to know all these people in the industry. Everyone's around the table that you've brought here today. These are the kind of people that have been a part of my world for a couple of decades, and it's been really helpful to bring the right insight to that table at the very beginning and bring the right people um to the big at the beginning. Um sometimes it's a little bit at odds. Um, I know uh Nick is very interested in um throughput and uh maximizing fiber volume through the system. And of course, I'm very interested, as everybody is here, on with cost. And maybe the first thing I'm trying to do is minimize the amount of fiber that's going through the system because that's going to be the first driver of cost in a mass timber building, is going to be the volume of wood fiber, and most of that volume is in the panels that we're talking about, right? And so um, so one of my optimizations is just trying to get the most out of every panel that I possibly can, uh, in addition to the most of every other material uh uh uh that I have. So I don't know if that answers your question, Nick, but you know, it starts with the design team, and I'd I'd I'd add that um you know something I'll probably say over and over, which is that the sooner you can get the other folks at the table, well, the better it is. Um I always go back to uh um we've been integrated builders and designers of steel structures for a long time. And the first time many years ago, um I sat with a steel erector when we were doing schematic design of a building, and I realized that the decisions I was making and where the splices and the beams were going had every effect in the world uh uh influence on where the erector was able to put the crane and how far his reach was and how much that crane was going to cost. And so I thought, wow, you know, these folks gotta be I ha have to be sitting, sitting with me while that's all going on. And that's kind of an ideal scenario, and sometimes, many times, we've succeeded at pulling that scenario together. Um doesn't work every time, but we do it uh as much as we can. And so that's that's the real answer. And and that's a good answer.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

If I could just absolutely compliment what Greg's just said. So we talked about volume throughput. So if Greg um say redesigns a structure from say a five-ply to a three-ply from a manufacturing perspective, we can get more panels through our press at once than we can with a five ply. So we can get three three pliers in rather than two, say, five pliers. That makes a big difference to productivity. So actually, Greg working to engineer out the volume is that it's a for the manufacturer because we get more throughput as productivity goes.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

And I did a poll recently where I asked, hey, what is everybody seeing being like the biggest uh obstacles for mass chamber construction? And the top answer was cost. Um, and the second answer was experienced teams, you know, talking about the things that we talked about uh over the last few minutes. Um how do you think that this hybrid approach fits into that conversation for cost and for being able to tap in experienced teams?

SPEAKER_05 17:23

Um well, fair warning. I can talk about this for about two hours, and so there won't be any time left for anybody else. Um you know, uh cost is it's always the top of the list, and cost is driven by a whole lot of things. Some of them are completely out of my control as a designer, right? The the price of lumber, you know, on the on the open market is not anything I can I can speak to. But um I can speak to um, as I sort of uh said already, optimizing uh timber volume, right? That's a that's a key one. Um uh I I also think a lot about constructability. One of the great things that mass timber brings to the market is speed of construction, prefabrication, maximizing off-site labor instead of on-site labor. And that um uh that involves those are design choices, right? I always tell people mass timber doesn't build fast because it's made out of wood. It's built fast because it's prefabricated and we design it to build quickly, right? Which has to do with how it goes together, right? Um so um at KLNA, we spend a lot of time thinking about connections um and what their individual cost is and how they're going to go together. Um, a phrase I stole from Ralph Austin at Seagate Mass Timber a long time ago is drop and go connections. Because I love the idea, you know, we just like the idea that the crane can come in, pick something up, drop it down, let it go, go pick something else up while they're working to make the connection and it doesn't have to hang there, right? And so all those decisions actually have quite a lot to do with cost, right? Um uh and so uh we we we think about that. Um we also think about um uh being responsible about uh just how bespoke our mass timber is, right? You know, the amazing advances in in in uh CNC cutting and what we what we can actually what we're what we can do is not something that we should uh a lot let ourselves do on every project if we're trying to manage cost, right? Because CNC cutting on a on a mass timber panel, they're really heavy and they're really big, and it takes a lot to flip them over and and move, you know. So we can do it, but we have to be very careful about what we ask um the industry to do if we're trying to keep our eyes on uh on cost. Um I should uh well I I'll stop there except for I have to bring up another uh uh one that I'm uh a favorite project that I'm working on with Nick right now that is not a um it's not a hybrid project, but uh the width of the building, it's a 12-story building. The width of the building is 60 feet, and we're dropping in 12 by 60 foot panels that cover the entire building width in each crane pick. So 720 square feet of of floor area with every crane pick. It's really impressive. Got it. So um, you know, that's a that's a way of thinking that involved literally designing about the building around what uh Mercer could deliver in that uh in that case, right? So um that's a total success.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Nick, what would you add to the cost question? Um, and then also the experience of different teams across the different industry. Like how do those two come together in the hybrid conversation to push mass timber forward?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah, and so um good example. We've been working with a developer uh to come up with a build system solution. So it's not just about the mass timber, it's about the build system solution. And Greg and I have been heavily involved for many years on bringing about the um our CFS CRT solution. Why CFS CRT? And this is a really good example. Um, because timber frame is great up to five stories. You won't build in much above five stories because timber frame will just not physically stand up structurally. Um the CFS CLT models allows to take um the short span accommodation model up to maybe 10, 12 stories. And and of course, CLT is about 70% of the construction because that's in the floor area. But what it does, it gives us a challenge to take on the RC frame market. So we've been working with a developer and we managed to save 10% of the construction costs by doing an alternative build system to we drive it back down to cost. Um it was, I think, $15, $17 a square foot cheaper than concrete. Um, it reduced three months off the construction schedule. It was lighter, so it impacted the foundation design. But the fact that you could have uh multiple substrates working internally and externally at the same time. So all these factors are more holistic when designing with mass timber. You don't just look at the direct cost per square foot. Okay, in this equation, yeah, we were. Cheaper, but the fact that or more competitive, but the fact you look at it holistically, and it is about what Greg said, it's about a prefabricated technology, which is off-site solution. And of course, um, having the ability to manufacture a 60 by 12 foot panel has huge benefits. Um, we worked with Kirby Faust down at the Walmart campus and doing 60 by 12 reduces the number of picks on the job site, which then improves productivity that you're covering a greater area uh with fewer picks on the job site. Going back to the question on knowledge, uh, when you're only 10 years young in North America, that knowledge runs right through the ecosystem. So we're talking about structural engineers, we're talking about BIM coordinators, we're talking about structural detailers, we're talking about the install crews. It's it's it's it's momentum that's created just by pure experience. And I was very fortunate to meet Kirby Faust at a Mass Timber conference uh four years plus now in Chicago, and it was a hybrid conference of steel and mass timber, yet the only uh steel installer in the room was Kobe Faust. So, of course, me, my background in steel, like I latched onto Kirby. Well, that's just yielded out a beautiful relationship where we've been working with each other now for three years plus on projects and many more going forward. Because what you've got is somebody who understands, respects the material, but also understands the dynamic of both say steel and mass timber coming together, which therefore makes the perfect partnership in and and and the the install sequence actually drives the whole procurement process in where you start to build the job, and where do you start, what corner of the building do you start? That works right back up to where you start designing it because we can't just design buildings in a in a in a in a permanent position, we have to design the buildings in a temporary state condition for buildability. So, this is where to Greg's point of who do you bring in first? Yeah, of course, you need the designer. It's about the hand in the glove. You also need your manufacturer because, therefore, how do you gain the efficiencies in the connection design, in the panel design, but you also need your installer as well on how we're going to build this thing efficiently, uh safely, and with productivity. It's the three parts of the ecosystem design, manufacture, install.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

And Tom, you've come from the the manufacturer on the mass timber side. Now you're doing a lot of work with the iron workers. What would you add to this conversation?

SPEAKER_02 24:36

I I would say in my experience, we'd see projects die in the line because they're not designed correctly. Um and you you're you're putting 10 pounds of stuff in a two-pound bag, right? I mean, everybody wants a super cool, beautiful mass chamber building, which is great. Those are the one percenters, if we're being honest. I mean, those are the one percenters. The 90%, the big group is that hybrid system. And so I I really enjoy what I'm doing now because especially being at this group, I'm in awe of the experience that we have here. But really, that's the key. I mean, I my job is to make sure to help the mass timber uh industry grow, right? And so let's talk about what's the best for that. The best person, contractor, whatever for the job, right? The early integration is key. Design is key to make sure we're doing that. We need somebody to next point that knows what they're doing on that. Okay. So to step on the line of ironworker's work, carpenter's work, any of that stuff, whoever's best suited for the job should be on the job, right? Depending on the build and on the structure, um, that's what we need to bring to the table so we have that experience. Ideally, if you can write one contract to do multiple scopes of work, that's incredible, right? If we're driving costs down and doing all that stuff, that's that's what we're really driving to do. If we can have faster erection times, um the cost of materials are going to be relative to the project, but if you can get that project done faster ahead of schedule, uh more efficiently, safer and and more efficiently, that's that's the answer to that. So, so I don't want to stand and talk about you know who's better suited for that. I I think it's a job by job basis, and I really think we need to put our big boy pants on and look at that first, you know, because you get a lot of times you get up in arms about that sort of thing, and really who's best suited for the job? What kind of cake are we going to make? A chocolate cake needs chocolate cake ingredients, a vanilla cake needs vanilla cake ingredients. And so I think, like we talk about hybrids, I think there's a lot of consideration to a successful project in with having um in in a lot of cases a composite crew. I know that Faust runs that. There's things that these folks do really well, and there's things that these folks do really well. So that's that's really it. It's it's just getting past this whole weird spot that we're in, everybody trying to grasp on and hold on to their secrets, right? Versus a one rise, all rise type deal. There's enough work out there for everybody as these projects come along. If we're looking at the bulk, the 90% that are hybrid, man, we can really rock up stuff. And let's let's keep the one percenters how they're doing. They're super cool, they're amazing, but at the end of the day, I think that's the solution to this problem.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yeah, and if I could kind of kind of add real quick to about driving cost, it's it's kind of what we're all talking about. It starts at the beginning. It's it's the it's the team that gets gathered up from designer to installer to manufacturer, and that they come together and and they have such a tight-knit coordination with them and the GC that the projects are organized, deliberate, and and and erectable. Those when when that team doesn't get gathered up, the cost goes up, the efficiencies are lost. Uh, the the the pre-planning is so critical to the success of a project. I I just can't speak enough about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah, that's a great point. And uh I want to circle back a little bit to Tom's like a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. Um, I think we talked a little bit about, hey, if we don't want to fight the market, right? We want to go where the market's going, right? And so if we're talking about hybrid, maybe that's CLT Ford X structural steel. Is there anything else that the mass timber industry can look at and learn from the iron workers that would help move that forward? Um, we talked a little bit before we had hit record on uh and you had alluded to it a little bit, Greg, like what's what's the standard here? It's like, you know, you you sat next to a steel erector and you learned, hey, if I do my job this way, it makes his job way easier. But because the industry is so young, that standardization doesn't really exist. And so I guess the question I'm getting at is, um, Tom, is there like a standardization issue um or lesson that mass timber could pull from steel and like how would that help the industry?

SPEAKER_02 29:00

I I agree, and I'll I I are yes, there is, and I'll speak to this a little bit, and then I'm gonna turn it over to um to to Nick and and Greg on this. But you know, right now we're still wild west with with mass timber, right? You ask the steel industry how big a hole needs to be for a three-quarter inch bolt, every one of the fabricators would tell you it's a 13, 16 inch hole and it's a standard, and AISC owns that standard, right? So, so I I think what we need to get to is um adopting similar to what the steel industry has. You know, I would love to to whoever's listening out there from AISC, um, we're starting to have these conversations with that, and I would love to talk about that because right now Mercer, Smart Lamb, Element5, ColesterCyve, everybody you name it, they all have their own standards and make their own things, which is great, right? We don't want cookie cutters of everything. That doesn't, that's not what we're trying to get for. But when we're designing these buildings with specifics to Greg's point, a 12 by 60 panel, right? Not everybody has that 12 by 60 panel, but what about whole size connections? We all know how key connections are on that. So if we had some standards and standardization and oversight of that, I think that's really where the direction we need to go to really keep this thing moving in the right trajectory. Nick, is that somewhat close?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, you know what? Um, I faced the same issues um dealing with the European supply chain 20 years ago. Where you had different manufacturers, Binder, Storer, KLH, offering different panel sizes, thicknesses, and you know, we really had to understand their products. Gulan was actually quite a straightforward standardized component. So, how did we adapt? And bearing in mind, we were a steel company, we designed, we manufactured, we installed. So, what we did, we worked closely with the AIS, the equivalent in the UK called the BCSA, the British Construction Steel Association. And at the time I was fortunate to find myself as the chairman of TRADA, the Timber Research Development Association, which was a third-party non-for-profit. And what we realized was we needed to create a bunch of standards. These standards were more reflective of a build system, not the product itself. And these standards would cover for the design, manufacture, and install of a mass timber building or even a hybrid building. So we worked with the regulatory body of the steel industry, the AISC equivalent, and we came up with a national structural uh mass timber specification for the UK construction market, which was actually not plagiarized, but it was a parallel version of what we call the Black Book, which is the steel construction standards on design, manufacture, and install. We covered a whole lot more. We covered the issues uh pertaining to fire durability. We worked with the insurance companies on how on there how they would perceive and protect the premiums of the industry to keep costs down. So, really, we we we replicated, emulated what the steel industry had done for so long for so well, and put this sort of standard guardrails for the mass timber industry to Tom's point. You know, is it a bit maverick? Is it a bit all over the place? To a degree, yes. But I think the learnings from the steel industry were absolutely pivotable, pivotal for the growth of the mass timber industry in the United Kingdom. And I think, you know, if we did the same, I always believe that the mass timber industry in North America would grow exponentially off the back of the steel industry. So as long as we gain parallels together, working in tandem together.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

How would that standardization uh trickle down into your work, Greg?

SPEAKER_05 32:51

Um, well, you guys have opened the door for me to use one of my tiredest old jokes, which is my theory of construction costs. I call it the economic theory of what I built yesterday, uh, which basically says the cheapest building you can make is the one that looks exactly like the last one the contractor built, right? Which sounds like a joke, but it's really just saying that's how risk is managed, right? That's how they understand I understand how this works, I know how it's gonna go together, I can predict the time, I can know how much it can it's gonna cost. And really at the heart of that is what we're talking about is about standardization, right? You know, and and um what can be done to make each project or at least the bones of each project uh uh uh look like a standardized system. Um I think a lot of people know I like you know, I'm just uh riffing off of what Tom said, you know, I like working with the uh uh wacky architects and making completely bespoke buildings as much as anyone, maybe more than most people. Um, but those are fun. But if we really want to solve the problems, the challenges we have with housing, with embodied carbon, with forest health, and all the things that that Mass Chamber of Fact, we have to start doing it at scale, and we have to start accepting the idea that uh the bones of these buildings need to be standardized. And I mean, just from this conversation, I'm I'm getting the idea that um, you know, steel buildings don't all look alike, right? Um, because what's been standardized, as Tom said, is you know what size hole to drill for a three-quarter inch bolt, right? And there's no reason why the mass timber industry can't focus on standardizing not the building form, but how the building goes together. So I think we have a lot of work to do, but but things are gonna really take off when we can when pull that off.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah. And Kobe, you're an iron worker. You've also worked on some pretty high profile projects. I think nicknamed one. Uh and I that story about you being the only iron worker at that hybrid conference kind of caught my attention. So, from an iron worker's perspective, like how are you looking at mass timber in the conversations that we've had so far?

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Yeah, with we we we look at it with a great amount of excitement. It's it's life material that's that's replacing structural steel and in in all shapes, forms, and locations on the job site. And we'll talk about Wild, Wild West, a little a little bit of everything's getting replaced with mass timber. So it's pretty exciting. Uh we we we we started looking at it as okay, just because of my background of what I know that that iron workers are going to be doing, performing a hundred percent of that work on site. Uh, it didn't take us long to understand that the the scariest thing to hear when I'm walking on that job site is an iron worker hollering for a salzo. Um, that starts to get look like a lot of dollar signs going down the road real quick. So so it after a couple of projects that we did, we kind of switched up what we did. And and and we really drove to put different crafts, different trades in places that they are successful for the knowledge and training that they have. So we started uh running composite crews with with iron workers and carpenters. And and really that's what I see the future is um in in these projects. It it takes both to make these projects successful when it comes to safety and production and and floor turnovers to allow other subs to get on the job site and get to work and have have uh quick turnarounds and completions on the projects.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

For so I heard you say you run kind of a composite crew, right? You got iron workers, you got carpenters. What do you what are you having each one do? And why do you run a composite crew versus all iron workers or all carpenters, et cetera?

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Yeah, so so when you let's say you walk out to one of our project sites and and what do you see the iron workers doing the carpenters? The the iron workers are are rigging, unloading the trucks, rigging, sending it up to a pretty standardized common raisin gang erecting the building. Iron workers are temporary bracing the material off, plumbing, racking, doing a lot of the bolted connections. But along with that, a lot of these systems have a lot of a lot of screwing and fastening systems. So the carpenters are in there involved in in all of those final screwing. Um as much pre-planning and coordination that takes place, there's always going to be a hiccup because humans are involved and material getting shipped out to site. How do we mitigate that and and get that fixed uh to keep everything rolling? Is we've got a we've got to repair it on site. Well, when it comes to the mass chamber side, carpenters are a natural fit. They work with the material all the time. They're they're phenomenal at layout. Uh they take care of that product because they're very familiar with it. And I kind of bounce back to my whole deal about having an iron worker hauler for a salzole. When that first happened, there was a little bit of a clearance issue on a on a CLT panel that that went around a white flange beam column. And uh they hauled up for a salzole, and I caught it about mid-step, and I ended up buying a new CLT panel because their layout was a little bit wrong. You know, so are we gonna find some really good Finnish carpenters type people that are iron workers? Well, sure, we we definitely will, but the primary drive of that trade is bolting, AISC knowledge, the the all the code and requirements around all of that, any kind of welding taking place on the job sites. That's all in the wheelhouse of of the iron worker trade. The finish work, refinishing, final screwing, splining, uh, a lot of layout. We we find it best to put the carpenters in those roles and and and be successful. And and honestly, though though when we first started, I was really concerned about disruption amongst the crews working so tightly in among each other. Honestly, we've had nothing but success from it. Um there there might be a couple of days of of the different crafts kind of kind of poking at each other, but as long as we hold high expectations of how that project's gonna operate between the two two crews coming together, they they it actually is a very pleasant, enjoyable job site that everybody works together for successful jobs.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And that's great insight. And a follow-up question I would have to that is for teams that don't take that kind of composite approach, um, or maybe it's one or the other, do you see any money getting left on the table in terms of maybe budget, risk, rework, uh labor, multiple subs being managed? Like what are the advantages of running that composite crew for the building owner?

SPEAKER_03 39:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all the above, right? I uh I our workers are are are well trained and and skilled at rigging, hoisting, placing with a production rate schedule, right? So trucks coming in, stuff's getting rigged, stuff's getting placed fast and efficiently. Uh damage of material is really mitigated with with pre-planning on those projects. Um the the the carpenters being able to fix issues, which generally are very far and few between with material coming from the manufacturers of the site, but being able to have that opportunity to do that. Um when you don't, and in in the layout, the screwing, the efficiencies and all that that the carpenter trades bring to the table to make that job successful, what what I see is when you do not do that and you try to do it 100% with iron workers, they're great at uh getting the buildings up and getting them erected, but now we're going a lot slower doing all the finish screwing, doing all the repair work and all that. We're losing money on the backside, but vice versa. If I was to look at it by swapping those screws and and I take in 100% carpenters erecting the building, we're losing a tremendous amount of efficiencies on one of our most expensive parts of the projects, and that's crane time.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah. Well, that's that's great insight. Um, I'm gonna call out a little bit of an elephant in the room. Sometimes I hear that there's concern that the higher labor cost of iron workers going into a mass tumor project can make the whole project too expensive. What's been your experience with that?

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Uh our our experience with that is running the blended crew to offset that and and the the efficiency of the iron worker assembling and erecting the building and being able to offset it with the cost of efficiencies there.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

I I would like to add to that if I could. You know, I recently been building fence out here in the back 40. Um, when I was a kid, I was a pretty damn good fence builder. But now I'm not such a damn good fence builder. So I could have a crew come in that's really good at what they do and pay them really good money and probably be money ahead. So that's how I would relate that back. If you have somebody that's really good at what they do, they can get a heck of a lot more done in a short amount of time, even if their cost per hour is more. I'm not very good at math, but if I have more production in less time, it makes sense there. And I think really that's where this this drives us to. Again, having the right crew on the job doing the right stuff that they're really good at is a huge uh benefit for the owners and the ownership team.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Yeah, and and being able to have that production rate with with the safety surrounding all of that, it uh from my viewpoint and and experience, and this is what we drive, is that we have clean, fluid turnovers of zones of areas so other subcontractors can get in behind us. Because really, I mean, yeah, it's it's great, it's glorious that that we're out there as the erector, the installer getting this stuff done. But what really matters at the end of the day is completion of that project so the ownership can occupy it and start making money off of their investment. And and that's where the composite type crew that that we believe is the best direction for this product to go makes the most sense.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

And if you had to point to a project that you've done with this approach that had a really good outcome, what would you point to?

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Um honestly, every one that we we have performed since we started performing them this way. Uh, but if I had to had to pick out cherry pick the the the best projects, it was definitely the ones that we performed with Mercer down in Bentonville, Arkansas on the Walmart campus. Uh unbelievable, stringent timelines. Um just uh a lot of lot of lot of stress on everybody, including the the labor on site. And we were able to perform the work extremely efficiently and safely because of the skilled labor that we had on project site.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Nick, would you add anything to that or point to some other examples?

SPEAKER_00 44:12

How we deliver enough product to the job site in advance. We worked with Kobe on how he was going to install it. And it was we we tried something new as well. We had our own edge protection system, a proprietary edge protection system that we designed many, many years ago for mass timber. And we wanted to use it on the project at Bentonville. And Kobe's team just adapted to it beautifully. And it actually helped with productivity and safety on the job site. Because above anything else, it's okay throwing, you know, an army of labour at the project. It's got to be done safely. Safety is absolutely paramount to productivity. And a safe site is a profitable site. That's how we kind of look at everything. And uh we worked well, and we worked well with the challenges and um and what Kobe had done, he had these composite crew of mixing it with carpenters as well, which was perfect for us because the carpentry is the finishing, is the finishing and the framing behind the installers because the installers think of pick time. That's thinking how a steel installer thinks, but then you've got to think about the finishing and the handed over, and that's why we worked really well together.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah, thank you. Um, what about on a hybrid building that you guys have done, Nick, in general? Like, can you point me to a project that was that embodied this hybrid concept and kind of the outcomes of taking that approach?

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, I mean, we've worked with um many hybrid projects, and what we've done uh and we've acted as the super sub where we've taken control of the install. So uh if there's if there's more mass timber than there is steel, we'll put steel work in our package. And the reason why it just makes so much more sense because then the general contractor is not splitting the subtraits. The minute the subtraits get split, um, it leads to a multitude of problems. And one of the biggest challenges we have is is temporary bracing. Um, who's got what temporary bracing and what part of their scope? It's so important that the mass timber and the hybrid solution is installed by those just the one company that takes care of the lift plans, the crane plans, the temporary works installation. There's more to it than just you know the two pieces coming together and fixing beautifully. It's the thought process done by one company which drives the success of the projects. We've been involved in many, many hybrid projects. You need one installer on the job site, not two.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Yeah, that's a great example. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

Yeah, and and just to add to that real quick, so so I agree with that wholeheartedly, but but also from the installer uh outlook. If if I'm in bid process and I look at another contractor's coming in to install the mass timber, and we're we're only installing the structural steel, what kind of risk do I need to build into my budget for that? It's a great deal. So when we look at it as installing both scopes, it's more efficient, not only for the project, it's less headache for the general contractors, the steel suppliers, and for the mass timber supplier because the coordination's amongst uh a consolidated crew to make it uh successful.

SPEAKER_05 47:28

If I could jump in on that, I just have to say that that as uh KLNA, we're steel erectors, and we're now doing mass timber erection with steel erection for exactly the reason that Kobe and and Nick are are bringing up, right? We see this combined issue, and it's just crystal clear that having one erector, one brain uh installing and coordinating those things together is uh is clearly an answer to that problem. So I just wanted to reinforce what those gentlemen said.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Yeah, and that's those are both great examples. I use the analogy for uh American football to be the less, the more handoffs you have, the more chances for fumbles, right? So that makes sense to me. So as we like package this conversation up, you know, going back to like the the hybrid is the the meat and potatoes of what the industry could be growing on. That's going to involve bringing in different partners from the steel industry. What actually has to change at the manufacturer level, at the project team level for Mass Timber to scale the way that we're talking about? And I'll give that first question to Greg.

SPEAKER_05 48:35

Um, I can probably give you uh a few answers to that. Um one thing is already changing and it's already been brought up is that um like this the steel industry immediately uh or um early on really saw mass timber as a as a competitor, as a challenge, right? And um, and so they were really kind of fighting uh fighting the growth of mass timber. And I see a real change there. I mean, we're working directly with AISC right now to develop new rolled shapes for the steel uh uh, you know, uh for the steel mills that are specifically designed to coordinate and cooperate with mass timber and you know and pre-cast and other systems because they too see hybrid as the answer, you know, uh through the systems. And they're kind of kind of like, well, they better get on the train because that's you know, that's where it's going. And they've been actually really great to work with. Uh in fact, we had uh, I think 10 people at the NASC conference, which is the National Steel uh conference in uh Atlanta last week, and uh we gave two presentations on uh hybrid structures with mass timber, um uh both in cooperation with AISC, and they were very well received. And so um so the one thing that's changing is really the um uh uh the attitude of our former competitors, let's just put it that way, people realizing that um there's plenty to go around for everybody and uh and deciding to work, you know, work with everyone, that's working really well. Um I'll add another answer in because it's sort of the the founding principle of our whole company, um, and we uh uh haven't really changed the entire world just yet, but um the the whole notion of project delivery and being able to get multiple uh the different players at the table early on and bringing getting things closer to what people call integrated project delivery um uh will really help lower costs uh in the end. That's been our direct experience. Uh the design bid build process um is uh predicated at the outset on the commodification of all the all the materials that are involved. The assumption is everything you buy is identical to everything else, and the only difference is whatever the small differences that different people can bring to the table and make those things cheaper. And that is not what the mass timber or any hybrid uh structure is like by any stretch, right? And so changing um just project delivery methods and getting away from that age-old system to a little bit more integrated cooperative system uh will change the the world.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

That's a great answer. Nick, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Uh you know what all of the above what Greg just said. Um I do I think in cart it'd be obviously flee. Um I give you a good example. You know, we we have in-house eight structural engineers, not because we want to be the engineer of record, far from it. But we get situations where we get design assistant delegated design. And that is to support the EOR. Because when we've got early involvement, it's about how we can make the building more efficient, more buildable, how we can reduce waste. And you know, I think the most successful buildings I've been involved in throughout my career is about using the right material in the right place. And it goes back to everything, goes back to cost, cost versus carbon. You know, I think back to where it was two decades ago, and uh the retailers in the UK wanted to go to having you know green structures, which was the use of glue lamb, it was a case of where can we make the building more efficient with steel work, you know, the bracing, you know, horizontally and vertically, using steel sections as opposed to timber sections for efficiency and size. Uh, how we can get away from deep structural glue lamb beams to create bowstring trusses. So we've got light and the services to penetrate through the roof. Back of the house, maybe where the client doesn't see use of structural steel flame where it's got heavy plant loadings. So it is about the early involvement for the manufacturer, but the manufacturer's got to be able to bring engineering capability to the party because it's not about pushing product or selling product, it's about an efficient build system because once you've done that template once and created standardization, you've got more chance of it rolling out and scaling it up as well. And what we talked about standardization, working with the steel industry um on standards and process and everything else, but we will start to create repeatability as well. And therefore, we'll get more people coming to the party who are more familiar with the products.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah, yeah, another great answer. And uh, I'll pitch it to you now, Kobe, with uh the emphasis on like the constructability of these buildings, like what needs to change with the way that we're doing things now uh for the mass timber to really take off.

SPEAKER_03 53:19

It it all comes back to the standardization. Um, we we started those conversations ourselves three years ago with AISC and and kind of like Greg had said earlier, kind of with a little bit of pushback at the time, right? Because uh it's it's it's material replacing structural steel. It's becoming more of a of a of a coffee talk now, right? And sit down and and discuss it. AISC's really starting to embrace it and get engaged, and that that standardization to assist everybody from start to finish to get the product on on the or get the material on the project site is what's really gonna help drive the the mass timber success.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And so I'll I'll end our interview on one last question. And it would be, you know, if if somebody's watching this, what do you want them to walk away with and do differently on their next project? And I'll start with Tom.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

I'm gonna say get used to being uncomfortable, right? Uh comfort kills. So so if if we can if we can step outside that box a little bit and get comfortable being uncomfortable, I think that's key. That takes a seat along with taking the blinders back a little bit, educating ourselves and looking to the future. Because if we can change the dynamic just a little bit, right, and use this hybrid approach to doing things, we're gonna cover the masses. There's still gonna be the amazing one percenter projects that are all wood or that are all steel or have a super funky design or whatever. But the bulk of those projects, how are we gonna get them done successfully? And how can we be a part of that? Because there's a big enough pie for everyone to have a piece of it. So that's what I would say is really important for us to go forward and move this industry in the direction we want industries that we want them to be moving in. And then Kobe.

SPEAKER_03 55:16

You know what I'd love to love to kind of change the the kind of the mindset is opening up of working with composite crews for for erectors moving forward. That's uh that's a big success for the project. And end of the day, what what do all of us want? Whether we're an owner, we're we're an employee on the job site, we're a manufacturer, we want business, we want work, we want paychecks. Well, what drives that? Success. Because if the job is not successful, it doesn't come all the way back to the installers, the manufacturers, the design teams, and it starts to die. So if we can start looking at this to set the crews up in their best place possible for their skill set, and we start making um installation and project turtles efficient, less of a headache for the general contractors, very successful for the ownership. It's a giant win for everybody.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

Yeah. And Greg, if someone's watching this, what do you want them to walk away and do differently?

SPEAKER_05 56:28

Um earlier on I staked the claim is first at the table with the designers. And so I'm going to speak to the designers and say, do not come to that table first with a preconceived notion of what material or system uh you want to design with. Keep your mind open and don't uh leave hybrid solutions off the table. Even even mass timber, which I love. Don't come married to a hundred percent mass timber building. Um, you know, open your mind to hybrid solutions, don't leave them behind. And Nick, I'll let you bring it home.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Um, wow. That was some really good statements to follow up with. Um, for me, what I learned in the last two decades is mass timber buildings actually sells more steel. And therefore we need the entire steel industry and the AISC to come with us on this journey to create the standards to grow the business. We will grow with the steel industry, and that in turn will grow the steel industry itself. So that I say steel and mass timber is symbiotic 100% from beginning to the end. And uh yeah, just let's all bring it home together.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Great way to finish it out. Well, gentlemen, thanks for being with uh me here today. I appreciate your time and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for great conversation.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

Thanks, everyone.