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LunchTalks@CAF: Celebrating Engineering - Timber Tower Research Project by SOM

Benton Johnson, PE SE, Associate, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

For more than 60 years, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP has been a leader in designing and engineering tall buildings. Challenges inherent in creating sustainable cities in the 21 st century have led SOM to develop the “Timber Tower Research Project.” Publicly released in June 2013, the research project discusses critical design issues related to high-rise mass-timber buildings through the conceptual design of a 42-story mss-timber building in Chicago. SOM’s proposed system called the “Concrete Jointed Timber Frame” could be competitive with conventional construction technologies while reducing the embodied carbon footprint of the structure by 65-75%. SOM believes that the Timber Tower Research Project can inspire thinking to address today’s concerns about sustainability and give us another important tool for environmentally responsible urban development.