Timber Innovation Act to promote tall wood buildings introduced in Congress

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are lining up behind a new bill that would promote the use of wood to construct tall buildings.

The Timber Innovation Act, which has the support of several lumber trade groups, was sponsored by members of both parties. The act would:

Establish a performance driven research and development program for advancing tall wood building construction
Authorize the Tall Wood Building Prize Competition through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Create federal grants to support state, local, university and private sector education, outreach, research and development, including education and assistance for architects and builders
Authorize technical assistance from USDA, in cooperation with states, to provide education and technical assistance for mass timber applications
Incentivize the retrofitting of existing timber facilities located in areas with high unemployment rates to spur job creation in rural areas.

Tall, wood frame buildings are gaining popularity in Canada and Europe, in particular. The concept is somewhat controversial, however, with some fire chiefs concerned about the structures’ safety in the event of fire.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.