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Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy

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41–50 of 276 posts

Re: Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy

#42

Anyone know why Douglas Fir wood is considered a sustainable building material? A quick Google search says that species takes 50-100 years to mature

That just makes it slightly more expensive than a faster growing timber, most of the cost of timber production is labour, machinery depreciation, transport.

Steel is 100% recyclable, indefinitely, and energy source agnostic.

Re: Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy

#43
post #39

Anyone know why Douglas Fir wood is considered a sustainable building material? A quick Google search says that species takes 50-100 years to mature

I believe in this case they aren't waiting for it to mature. They use what's called LVL (laminate veneer lumber) which is basically thin sheets of the wood glued together (think plywood but thicker) and then recut into dimensional sizes. The end product is both stronger and straighter than conventional lumber. And because you don't need a large cross section (almost literally any size will do), you can have a pretty…

PDX is not using LVL, they're using glulam. That's 2x4 and 2x6 dimensional lumber glued together.

https://www.apawood.org/pdx-gets-back-to-its-roots-with-engi...

Re: Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy

#44

Anyone know why Douglas Fir wood is considered a sustainable building material? A quick Google search says that species takes 50-100 years to mature

50-70 years is the typical harvest time in Oregon. This works out fine because we have a large amount of forest, douglas fir is the most productive harvested timber by acre, and they do not harvest the whole forest at once. They typically harvest 1 square mile sections at a time.

Here are some pictures to give an idea of the logging pattern: https://imgur.com/a/grid-grid-logging-oregon-ewNJL2e

Re: Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy

#47
post #32

It looks beautiful. It talks about it being structural. Is it really? It looks more like a suspended ceiling below steel girders. Our largest airport (AKL) is in the process of rebuilding both domestic and international terminals. They are trying for a timber ceiling [1] with rubber floors [1]. It seems a confused design. > A ‘cost-effective’' mix of durable carpeted and rubber flooring was being used inside and tray…

It's the renovated interior of a pre-existing building, so yeah: not structural, at least no more than needed to hold up its own weight. But it really is very nice.

They renovated the existing structure and expanded it as well, doubling the capacity of the airport. They did a lot of interesting work to make it earthquake proof. Check out the video, I'm pretty sure someone posted it in this discussion.

Re: Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy

#50

I just flew through there and saw the renovation for the first time, and it is an absolutely stunning transformation. Just incredible. I loved it. The whole thing. From the ceiling to the ticketing islands to the reworked security to the amphitheater style seating areas at the terminal exit where friends & family can await your arrival. It feels spacious, natural, functional, and hospitable.

Please tell me they kept a patch of the iconic carpet around
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