{"id":19280,"date":"2024-07-23T07:58:11","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T21:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=19280"},"modified":"2024-10-21T20:17:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T10:17:36","slug":"faster-safer-greener-inside-tassies-top-mass-timber-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/faster-safer-greener-inside-tassies-top-mass-timber-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Faster, Safer, Greener: Inside Tassie’s Top Mass Timber Building"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tasmania’s tallest mass timber building, one of Australia’s most sustainable buildings, is now open for business, with the seven-storey St Luke’s building turning heads in downtown Launceston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported by Pulse Tasmania, the $27m building, kitted out with Xlam cross-laminated timber panels, Hess Timber glulam beams, and CUSP’s hardwood mass timber, has been assessed as having less than half the carbon footprint of a typical steel and concrete commercial building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Project Director and St Luke’s Board Member Martin Rees, the project is “five years in the making” and distinctly Tasmanian: “St Luke’s is probably the largest office-based head office in Launceston of anybody with over 140 people. (Until now) we were spread all over town, so this brings St Luke’s (in the) one building, which is fantastic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wood Central understands that the University of New South Wales has assessed the building as having 55% less carbon than a typical commercial building, with further detailed certification underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you look at the Green Star building rates on that criteria, that gives us a six-star building in terms of body carbon, and that’s a very, very high success rate,” Mr Rees said, adding that “in terms of levels, that’s a very, very successful outcome for us.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re proud of that, and we have benchmarked against other buildings, and this is probably one of the best in Australia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the rapidly rising St Luke’s building reshaped Launceston<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In August<\/a>, Wood Central reported that the seven-storey building went up faster than those made from traditional building products like steel and concrete. “The speed of construction has been the biggest eye-opener for us,” according to Fairbrother’s General Manager for North East Tasmania, Marcus Perkins, who is responsible for the massive build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designed by Sydney-based Terr<\/a>oir, <\/a><\/em>the building has five levels of massive, engineered timber beams that stand out in the skyline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Stree
The Terroir design retains the existing 19th-century warehouses as well as the structure of the foyer, a cross-site link that connects to the grounds of the adjacent church and associated public spaces on a ground level, such as end-of-trip facilities. (Image Credit: Terroir)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In line with St Luke’s vision, the tower was designed to be Tasmania’s most sustainable and carbon-positive office development: “The targeted carbon reduction of 40% made this project one of the first Net Zero Carbon projects in Australia,” Terroir said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“The building’s mass timber construction method targeted the removal of 7,665 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere \u2013 the equivalent emissions of 2,141 cars driving 20,000km per year.”<\/p>\nTerroir\u2018s design statement about the project.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In addition, a life cycle plan guided the timber configuration and detailing such that if the building is no longer relevant and is demolished, the structure can be re-engineered and re-used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to ABC last year, Jake Herbet, the Fairbrother Project Manager, said the massive building featured a timber-concrete hybrid connection on level 6. “This allows us to pour a concrete slab over the top of the timber to weatherproof the deck and terrace areas.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"St<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Position<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"21304<\/figure>\n
Design gallery provided by Terrior<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Xlam supplied almost 90% of the CLT panels.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Wood Central reported that Xlam <\/a>was extensively involved in helping <\/em>Fairbrother with cross-laminated timber panels. By volume, Xlam supplied 961m3 of CLT, or 89% of the total CLT on the project \u2013 with the remaining 11% provided by local manufacturer Cusp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Xlam, environmental drivers, the speed of construction, building aesthetics, biophilia (occupant wellness), and carbon storage were among the major drivers of this approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Xlam, Hess Timber<\/a><\/em> supplied the Glulam beams, and mass timber carpentry specialists Savcon <\/a><\/em>also assisted with the timber build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Mass timber is still not adequately addressed in the National Building Code or Australian standards, so we had to develop performance solutions which were referenced back to the European standards.”<\/p>\nMarcus Perkins, Fairbrother’s General Manager for North East Tasmania.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Floor-to-ceiling timber from locally salvaged hardwood<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

One of the building’s special features is the top floor, engineered floors and ceilings made from hardwood mass timber produced locally in Tasmania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supplied by CUSP, the world’s first FSC, PEFC and Responsible Wood certified cross-laminated timber made from hardwood, CUSP’s General Manager Michael Lee is proud of his work: “We’ve taken material destined for the wood chip pile that was going to China to make paper and built it into the timber for the built environment in a sustainable and usable manner that Fairbrother and others can use,” Mr Lee said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the challenges?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

However, despite mass timber’s many advantages, it can present challenges and problems with weather conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Probably the biggest challenge is water management,” Mr Perkins told the ABC. “We’ve put up all the mass timber through winter in Tasmania, and trying to keep everything as dry as possible wasn’t easy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There was a lot of manually sweeping, sealing joints, double sealing joints, triple sealing joints, and not having any pockets where water can sit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only other negative is the cost\u2014according to the project team, building with engineered mass timber is still persistently 30% higher than traditional products in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The direct cost is more, without question, but the speed of construction has surprised us,” he said. “We erected five levels of mass timber in three months \u2026 if that were traditional concrete and steel, it would have been at least double that,” Mr Perkins said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the price the owner of this building is willing to pay for sustainability!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tasmania’s tallest mass timber building, one of Australia’s most sustainable buildings, is now open for business, with the seven-storey St Luke’s building turning heads in downtown Launceston. As reported by Pulse Tasmania, the $27m building, kitted out with Xlam cross-laminated timber panels, Hess Timber glulam beams, and CUSP’s hardwood mass timber, has been assessed as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[3,38,50,37,35,47,41,46,42,39,68,43,45,59,40],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":{"0":"post-19280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-architecture","8":"category-architecture-and-design","9":"category-australia","10":"category-building-and-construction","11":"category-case-studies","12":"category-commercial","13":"category-exterior-wood-products","14":"category-industry","15":"category-interior-wood-products","16":"category-mass-timber","17":"category-sector","18":"category-structural-wood-products","19":"category-sustainability","20":"category-tasmania","21":"category-wood-products"},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jason","display_name":"Jason Ross","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19288,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19280\/revisions\/19288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19280"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=19280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}