Normal. What defines normal these days? The dictionary definition is telling us its conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern and characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine. Since early 2020, not much remains in that silo.
We’ve all been through our own version of a new normal both professionally and personally over the years, but this year felt like a hurricane of changes.
While many of these changes have been life altering, we have become accustomed to some seemingly insignificant things like how our vocabulary has changed with overly referenced terms like pivot, cohort, virtual, quarantine and of course Covid. We can all appreciate a time when the word ‘remote’ simply meant that device with the numbers on it somehow changed the channels on the television.
Many changes in our lives occur over a gentle or expected amount of time. Just recently, I needed to explain to my teenage kids the origin of the phrases ‘roll the window down’, ‘dial the phone’ or ‘tape a show’. Professionally, gone are the days of the beepers, pay phones, folded paper maps, and mass information was distributed on paper. The first ground breaking smart phone came out about 15 years ago and who can remember what daily life was like without it?
Among the ever evolving are the building sciences. The movement of every element of a structure being ‘smart’ and monitored from a distance to inverting carbon emissions to carbon sequestration. A bright spot in building sciences is the use of mass timber in tall mass timber (TMT). While still trailing far behind concrete and steel as the structural material of choice, mass timber frames in the U.S. are on an upswing, in great part because the sustainable material is renewable and sequesters carbon. There are 445 engineered wood projects completed or under construction, and 534 in design, according to Woodworks, a nonprofit technical support group promoting the use of wood in nonresidential and multifamily buildings. The number of new mass-timber buildings in North America will double every two years, predicts the Forest Business Network.
As of January 1st 2021, the International Code Council (ICC) has approved 17 changes to the 2021 editions of the International Building Code (IBC) and International Fire Code, allowing for mass timber buildings up to 18 stories. With the addition of three new mass timber construction types (Type IV-A, IV-B, and IV-C), this is the first time in the history of the modern building code that significantly new construction types have been added to the code. Prior to this change in code, height limitations were six stories or eighty-five feet, depending on the group type. Currently one of the tallest mass timber structures in the U.S. is the Carbon 12 building in Portland, Oregon at eight stories. There is a new TMT building contender being constructed currently in Milwaukee, WI named Ascent, a 25-story apartment tower that will be the tallest mass timber building in the world. Is this another new normal?
At Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), parent to Sierra Pacific Windows, we know wood. We know timber and we know trees. In fact, we sustainably manage a lot of it, 2.1 million acres of the majestic privately owned forestland and wildlife within.
At Sierra Pacific Windows, we have a national team of architectural consultants frequently on the road working with the professionals in our field. Our consultations are often about a specific item within a specific project, but can be broad in scope and educational as well. It wasn’t long ago our consultants were driving with rolled coins and laminated street maps. What became routine with beepers and fax machines moved to cell phones from personal digital assistants and smart phones, virtual reality will soon become common place. So many of the recent changes in our world will be generational and, in many ways, it is similar to our generational forestry sustainability plan that spans 100 years of perpetual change.
Challenge us with your creativity and let your design be our new normal.
We hope we’ve enlightened you just a little about some of the innovative things happening in the fenestration industry. But, if you thought of a new question while reading our blog, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask us! We are available to guide you through the ever-changing world of windows and doors or help with your next project. Find your local Sierra Pacific Windows Architectural Consultant here.
Photo credits for blog: Photo 1 Created in house Photo 2 Andrea White Photo 3 Jeremy Bittermann | LEVER Architecture