Friday, March 11, 2011

Wooden Towers



BC Architects win Bob and Doug McKenzie's award for brain surgery. They are planning to build sky scrappers as high as 30 stories out of wood. Idiots. What happens when a fire breaks out? The next breakthrough is houses made of cards and Schools made of straw.

9 comments:

  1. Makes sense... I'm guessing if it catches on fire it'll do the same thing as a builing made of iron and steel....

    Didn't know you had an engineering/ architectual background... Because OBVIOUSLY you do if you're ready to bash an idea that comes from people with engineering and architectual backgrounds.

    Good on ya.

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  2. Wood burns a lot faster than iron and concrete. You don’t need an engineering degree to figure that one out. Building a tower of out wood is insane. Anything to rape our forests so some corporate criminal can make a quick buck. Western Canada is one of the few places the houses are made of wood not brick or mortar. One petrol bomb and they’re up in smoke. One earth quake and fires start because the gas lines break and there’s no water to put the fires out because the water line has been cut off to the watershed and a whole city block is on fire. Sounds more like a wooden nickel to me.

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  3. Very untrue...

    Engineered wood is what would be used, not dimensional lumber. The wood harvested from the forests (which is done sustainably unlike mining for metals: steel, iron, etc...)is broken down to its smallest form (lignins and fibers), and rebuilt in ways that give the rebuilt, or engineered, wood desired properties.

    Fire retardant materials are being added to these wood products already, and fibers are also rearanged to increase tensile strength. Engineered wood products can actually be up to three time as strong as iron and steel. Steel and iron actually fail structurally in fire than Glulam, oriented strand lumber and other engineered products. You can read more here:

    http://www.woodpreservation.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=26&Itemid=46

    So, not only is this a green way of building, its completely feasible and safe and can be more structurally sound than conventional high rises. Weather you've got a metal, stone, or any other material, a "petrol bomb" or a compromised gas line is going to cause destruction.

    As for "raping our forests", you are uninformed. Canada has some of the most stringent laws and constraints for forest operations and all the forest companies that operate in BC, AB, Sask, Ont, QC, NS,NB and NF require third party certification and are very very strictly monitored. Clearcutting is actually the most environmentally friendly way of harvesting timber. It results in the least siltation and erosion, and the least soil compaction and degradation as there are fewer entries required to move the timber to the mill.

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  4. What do you disagree with? The facts regarding engineered wood products, or the facts regarding harvest methods and certification practices? I have fact on my side, not to mention a forest tech diploma, BSc in Forest Management, and 15 years in forest operations, silviculture planning, policy analysis and implementation (with the govt of AB, and Ministry of forests in BC.

    Any disagreement you may have is surely unfounded... unless you've got some fact (scholarly article / peer reviewed articles) or real world experience to back up what you say, it doesn't really count for much. Having the grace to acknowlege someone elses knowlege and expertise and accepting that you might not have all the facts, or knowlege concerning a subject would do you well in this circumstance.

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  5. I think you are full of shit. You have your opinion I have mine. I have not convinced you and you have not convinced me. I think your logic is an absurd embarrassment to the world. If that is what our BC architects are saying, then we look stupid. Certainly it is physically possible to make a tower out of wood just like it is physically possible to make a house of cards, straw or ice for that matter. Building a tower out of wood is not environmentally friendly and is bad business. If our people want to build an electric car or do something positive for the environment then feel free. Just don’t make us look stupid with another bullshit reason to clear cut our forests while we endanger human life.

    Perhaps you’ll tell us all about Area 51 next.

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  6. I'm an embarrassment?? I've actually presented facts. You haven't. As far as "another reason to clearcut our forests"- again you've shown your ignorance. Annual Allowable Cuts (AAC) are set for mills by the Government based on the the sustainable removal of fiber. They won't increase the volume a forestry company can take off the landscape because there's a new project going up. Thats just not the way the industry works. You've got NOTHING, no experience, no academic knowlege, and no hearsay to base your opinion. You're basically some guy that says, I don't agree because i don't understand it.

    The only embarrasment I can see here is that you think you, somehow, know more about forestry, wood products, engineering, and architecture, than foresters, wood scientists, engineers and architects. Thats an astounding amount of arrogance, and ignorance.

    I suppose the world is flat too...

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  7. Also, your reference to area 51 is a bit confusing. I haven't said anything about conspiracies or alterior motives. Thats you... Remember? But when you're wrong, I guess its helpful to lace your posts with swears, and to try and claim the other person is insane... Personal attacks really help to prove your point. Well Played!

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  8. You are not an embarrassment, wooden towers are. What I find arrogant is someone claiming a wooden tower makes sense because they have a piece of paper that says they have a vested interested in the promotion of the forestry industry. Since you are so educated about forestry perhaps you’d be kind enough to explain why we still clear cut instead of selective tree harvesting which is much more sustainable and much less damaging to the environment.

    I was trying to figure out where the username forest 51 came from. Some are infatuated with area 51 which had something to do with UFOs.

    BTW this is just another insignificant blog. People have a right to vent and a right to express their opinion. Both of us do. However, I see no debate on this issue. We’re best to agree to disagree.

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