Wood is a versatile construction material. It has been used for
thousands of years. It has low embodied energy compared to many
other building materials, and it serves to sequester carbon.
But, compared with steel, it is relatively weak, and that,
combined with its inherent combustability, has meant that wood
is not used for structures more than a few stories tall. Now, a
new development in wood construction called cross-laminated
timber (CLT) is making new possibilities available in wood
construction. Cross-laminated timber panels are like massive
plywood boards. Instead of shaving a log into a veneer and then
gluing it together to make a board a few eighths of an inch
thick, a CLT panel is made from pieces of sawn wood and is
several inches thick. Like plywood, alternating layers are laid
perpendicular to one another, so that the finished panel is
stronger and more dimensionally stable than plain wood would be.
Because the panels are many inches thick, there is an inherent
fire resistance to the material, w