CLT, or “cross-laminated timber” is panels that are made from thin layers of locally resourced timber glued together to create durable panels that can be as strong as steel and concrete. Buying local wood spreads the benefits of economic growth to nearby rural communities, contributes to healthily managed forests, and traps carbon in a building—instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
CLT is a pet project of real-estate developer Anyeley Hallová, a Ghanaian-American who has double master’s degrees in city planning and landscape architecture from MIT and Harvard. Five years ago, Hallová partnered with Thomas Robinson and Lever Architecture to enter The U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition organized by the United States Department of Agriculture. The goal was to introduce the building method, which has been popular in Europe for decades, to a wary American audience, and prove that multi-story buildings—even skyscrapers—can be made of wood, be fire-safe, and “rock and level” in the event of an earthquake.
The team worked together with a Portland-based affordable-housing initiative to design a 60-unit high-rise building, Framework. The result? They won the contest, the U.S. building codes have been adjusted, and Framework is the first mixed-use, residential wood high-rise that’s been approved for construction. Now innovative CLT structures are popping up across the country, on college campuses, and museum grounds.
“People get really excited about solar power but may not be focused on the materials the homes are made of, or the energy used while creating and transporting them,” says Robinson. “You could think of CLT as plywood on steroids,” he adds. “People like to live and work in spaces they feel good in. And wood connects to people.”
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