The workplace constructing at 80 M Road SE in Washington, D.C., won’t stand out when you walked previous it.
It sits comfortably between a number of different workplace buildings, all sporting the identical fashionable exterior, glass window panes and metal beams. It’s a brief stroll away from the Navy Yard Metro station, the waterfront and Nationals Park, the house of Washington’s baseball group.
However that outward look belies what’s inside.
A latest addition to the construction’s prime three flooring makes the Capitol Riverfront property the district’s very first mass timber business workplace constructing. The addition was retrofitted by engineering agency Arup with help from developer Columbia Development and architect Hickok Cole. It opened Sept. 22.
Mass timber is a renewable materials created from wooden panels glued collectively in layers. It’s fire-resistant and load-bearing.
80 M is roughly 286,000 sq. toes general, whereas the mass timber addition is roughly 108,000 sq. toes. Often known as an overbuild, or additional tales on prime of an present constructing, the enlargement options three flooring, the place columns of mass timber are seen from the inside. All informed, the challenge used 13 tons of the fabric.
The American Trucking Affiliation and BP America have signed on to lease the brand new area, in accordance with a Columbia press launch.
One of many overbuilt flooring on 80 M.
Permission granted by Matthew Thibault
The business constructing units itself aside from different East Coast mass timber initiatives, mentioned Lauren Wingo, the challenge supervisor and senior structural engineer for Arup.
“Quite a lot of occasions with these mass timber initiatives, you may see them at universities, and even business actual property builders who’ve ground-up development, they usually need a timber constructing, they usually go in with that mindset,” Wingo informed Development Dive. “Right here, timber was thought of as an choice alongside different structural supplies.”
Making it work
Regardless of mass timber’s success and rising recognition around the globe, the fabric continues to be beholden to constructing codes that constrain what’s attainable in a construct. Wingo mentioned the group labored with district constructing officers to ensure the constructing met requirements. They made certain their designs adopted the 2021 Worldwide Constructing Code, which permits mass timber buildings as much as 12 tales.
Wingo mentioned that the agency had already labored on a earlier mass timber constructing within the district — the Washington Latin Public Constitution College, which gave them expertise within the space with dealing with points like allowing course of, for instance. Wingo additionally mentioned that constructing and planning officers needed to encourage future mass timber use.
“They have been a really engaged companion and had all the time informed us, ‘We wish to see mass timber, the district has sustainability objectives,’” Wingo mentioned.
A inexperienced thought
A part of the draw of mass timber is its low carbon footprint in comparison with different, extra conventional constructing supplies. Cement manufacturing, for instance, is the third largest industrial supply of air pollution, and releases greater than 500,000 tons per yr of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and carbon monoxide, in accordance with the Environmental Safety Company.
A number of the mass timber columns populating the overbuilt sections.
Permission granted by Matthew Thibault
The mass timber portion of 80 M at the moment holds Power Star, Fitwel, and WiredScore Silver certifications, in accordance with the press launch. Columbia and Hickok Cole are actually pursuing LEED Silver Core and Shell and WELL Constructing Customary model 2 certification for the vertical overbuild portion of the constructing as effectively.
The group additionally decreased carbon in different areas of the challenge. Wingo mentioned that as a result of the group averted a full demolition and rebuild of the present constructing, they in the reduction of on potential carbon emissions. This sort of overbuild work might probably repair points with city crowding, she mentioned.
“It is a actually nice resolution for dense city environments that want so as to add extra density, however wish to do it in a sustainable method,” Wingo mentioned.