Code Updates, Sustainability Spur Mass Timber’s US Adoption
Date Posted: August 4, 2022
Posted In: Discussion, Environment/Sustainability,
From ConstructionDive: Cross-laminated timber, also known as CLT, is gaining popularity in North America. Originally developed in the 1990s in Europe, the building material is popular overseas, but has progressed at a much slower pace in North America.
That is changing, according to Montreal-based CLT firm Nordic Structures. The firm’s projects range from the John W. Olver building at UMass Amherst to the Shawnee Mission School District Aquatic Center (pictured above) in Lenexa, Kansas.
Here, David Croteau, the vice president in charge of operations and engineering at Nordic Structures, spoke with Construction Dive about the growing popularity of the material in the U.S. and Canada, his vision for the company and what he would say to developers hesitant about the material.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: Talk about the company’s history. How did it get involved in CLT?
DAVID CROTEAU: We started in 1961 as a sawmill operation in Chibougamau, Quebec.
We eventually produced our own I-joists, which started the engineered wood product business for us. It was more on the residential side of the construction business than nonresidential.
In the early 1990s, we started to produce glulam, [or glue-laminated timber, a form of engineered wood] to go with our I-joists mainly to do headers above windows and doors.
We realized there was potential to grow the nonresidential market. That’s where I got hired and started that division of Nordic Structures to look after nonresidential projects.
In 2010, after a visit in Europe, we decided to move into the CLT business as well. CLT already existed in Europe, but not really in North America. So we were the first in North America to set up a plant and start to produce CLT.
We had to do a fair amount of marketing and sales pitches to convince people to use that new product. But it’s not rocket science, it’s pretty straightforward.
What’s it like using CLT in the nonresidential market, especially as people may be hesitant about the technology?
Funny enough, I see the reaction a little bit differently. I think that there’s quite a lot of early adopters. All the big companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, they’re all building with mass timber for sustainability reasons right now.