0:00

Brought to you by Toyota. Let's

0:02

go places. Welcome

0:07

to Forward Thinking, say

0:12

there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the

0:15

podcast that looks at the future and says,

0:17

isn't it good? Norwegian would? I'm

0:20

Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Bogbon, and

0:22

I'm Joe McCormick. And today,

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yeah, what what what are we doing today, Lauren?

0:27

Today we're talking more about the building

0:29

materials of the future. We've threatened

0:31

to do it, and now we're making good on that threat.

0:34

Yes. In April sixteen, we published

0:36

an episode called Building Materials of the Future

0:39

colin Bio Edition, um

0:42

and uh yeah, so that we would return to

0:44

the topic of construction materials science at

0:46

some point, because in that episode

0:49

we went, okay, we we a went really

0:51

deep into the problems with concrete and cement,

0:54

which are largely environmental um

0:56

and and we also went into a couple of potential

0:59

alternatives to concrete, including a

1:01

materials built by bacteria or fungus,

1:04

or materials made in part with hemp

1:06

or wool or seaweed or

1:08

animal blood. Oh yeah, the blood bricks,

1:11

those are good. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1:15

I'm just thinking about bricks made of wool and Minecraft

1:17

right now, it's just it's always

1:20

but then I have to be fair. Minecraft is always close

1:22

at the top of my mind. Do they have bricks made

1:24

of blood? No, but you can't make brakes

1:26

made out of wool. Did we have the same conversation

1:29

last time. I think we did, and I talked about

1:31

how in a thunderstorm, if lightning strikes

1:33

your wool structure, it will catch on fire and burned

1:35

out. But at any rate, one

1:38

of the things that drove that discussion

1:40

was that if you look

1:42

into how much it costs

1:44

US an energy and and in carbon

1:47

emissions to make concrete and cement,

1:50

it is not a trivial amount. According

1:52

to the U s Energy Information Administration,

1:54

if you choose to believe them, the cement

1:57

industry accounted for a quarter

1:59

of one percent of national energy

2:01

consumption in the United States. And and

2:04

that that sounds like it's small. You're talking about one quarter

2:07

of one percent, but that's total

2:09

energy consumption, which is a huge

2:11

number. So it's a slightly less

2:14

huge number. Yeah, And

2:16

to put it into another perspective that

2:20

that accounts for like ten

2:22

times it's fair share of

2:24

energy consumption compared to its

2:27

its output in terms of gross national

2:29

goods and services in the United States. Right, So it's

2:31

economic value, right, It's economic value

2:34

is much lower than the energy value

2:36

we're pouring into it compared to other industries.

2:39

And by that very nature, that's

2:41

what got us talking about, well, why

2:44

are we still using it and are

2:46

we looking into anything else? Well,

2:48

the reason we're still using it is that it's

2:50

it's the it's very useful. It's it's useful,

2:53

and there's an established industry,

2:55

there's an established infrastructure for it.

2:58

So you know, there are reasons

3:00

why we're using it. But there are a lot of reasons

3:02

that people are looking into alternatives because

3:05

of this energy requirement,

3:07

the fact that the carbon emissions are

3:09

pretty high, and that transporting

3:12

this stuff is not cheap either.

3:16

And so so there are lots of other materials

3:18

that we didn't get around to covering in the last episode,

3:21

and let's get into a few of them today.

3:23

How about would would Well,

3:25

wait, we already use wood to build things,

3:27

but this is a little bit different, isn't it. We're

3:29

gonna use more wood better,

3:33

future, would better? Better? Better? With

3:35

more wood? Now, please timber things.

3:38

It sounds like I've just had a complete brain event,

3:40

but No, seriously, one of

3:42

the building materials of the

3:44

future may very well

3:46

just be be would But well, I say,

3:49

just, but that's not really true. It's gonna

3:51

be a new type of wood that

3:53

goes through a specific manufacturing process

3:55

so that it increases its strength and

3:58

its resistance to stuff like fire,

4:01

which is important and allows

4:03

it to hold a much heavier load

4:05

than say your traditional

4:08

wooden house. Right, So the way we

4:10

use wooden construction today is for small

4:12

scale construction a couple of stories.

4:15

Maybe there's no reason not to build

4:17

a wooden house. But once

4:19

you're talking about high density occupancy,

4:22

that's where our big

4:25

large scale industrial building materials

4:27

like steel, concrete, cement, Uh,

4:30

they sort of take over. Like when you're

4:32

we're building tall buildings in an urban

4:34

environment, and tall buildings and urban

4:36

environments is kind of where we're going

4:38

with buildings. As we have talked on this

4:41

podcast about the floor. Yeah, there's a worldwide

4:43

urbanization trend. People are moving into the

4:45

city's and packing them in right, and being

4:47

able to build up helps

4:49

take care of this density problem as opposed to

4:52

sprawling further and further out from

4:54

a city center, which can come with

4:56

a lot of different problems

4:58

that we in Atlanta are very wilier. With

5:00

all that good infrastructure stuff

5:03

transport and water and

5:05

et cetera, you'll see a lot of other things,

5:08

uh, increase in cost because

5:10

of that. So being able to build upward

5:13

has a lot of different benefits. So we're

5:15

actually seeing a project. It's a it's a cooperation

5:18

between Cambridge University's Department about

5:20

Architecture and p LP

5:22

ARCHICHEC Tecture and engineers Smith

5:25

and Walwork and they're working on

5:27

an eighty story building that

5:30

would be three or four

5:33

feet tall made out of timber. Essentially.

5:37

That sounds pretty crazy,

5:39

it's it's The project is being called the Oakwood

5:41

Tower. Um it would be if it

5:43

was If it goes on to be to be

5:46

built, it will be the second tallest

5:48

building in London after only the Shard.

5:50

You know, I used to live in Oakwood, but that was

5:53

Oakwood, Georgia. So you

5:55

might wonder like, well, why are we even

5:57

looking at Wood again, What's what's the big

5:59

deal? Why why appear

6:02

to take a step backward in

6:04

human architecture. But actually,

6:06

as it turns out, Wood has got a lot of things going

6:08

for it. For one thing, it's a renewable resource. That's

6:11

a big one, right, as long as you harvest

6:13

it responsibly. Yeah, and plant

6:16

more trees right right, exactly. Yeah,

6:18

you have to have good stewardship of forests

6:20

in order for this to be a truly renewable

6:23

resource and not having a net negative

6:25

impact. But it would

6:27

potentially be a much

6:29

better resource than some of the other alternatives.

6:32

Also, if you were to process

6:34

the wood properly, you're talking about building material

6:37

that would ultimately create a building that could weigh

6:39

less so it produces less

6:42

of a strain on the area around

6:44

it. Uh, it would cost less,

6:47

it would take less time to build these

6:49

these structures actually go up pretty fast,

6:52

um, and it could be uh

6:56

more resistant to fire actually, which is

6:58

a little weird to think of when you're talking about we're

7:00

lying so

7:03

alright, So the way I've seen it described

7:06

is that the way this wood is made, you get

7:08

a char that's on the outside of the wood.

7:11

But it is very difficult for fire

7:13

to penetrate further in than the

7:15

surface. Given however

7:17

many layers of would you have, and the more

7:19

layers of would you have, the more time it

7:21

would take for the fire to actually penetrate

7:24

and burn through, right, because we're not talking

7:26

about about just a big old block of wood from

7:29

a single tree. Obviously,

7:31

perhaps because if you're talking about a

7:33

thousand foot high skyscraper, that's

7:36

a much larger tree than I've personally

7:38

seen. Um but uh but but yeah,

7:40

so you're you're talking about wood

7:42

composed in layers. And also yeah, like like

7:44

the natural tendency of a char on

7:46

the outside of wood acts as a protective

7:49

layer against the stuff further

7:51

inside. Right, So in these circumstances,

7:54

with a large enough item of

7:56

wood, yeah, you could also have treated

7:58

wood as well, which would make it even more

8:00

fire resistant. And this is all very important

8:02

because so so a lot of this work

8:05

is being done. Like we said, in London, let

8:08

me tell you a little bit about London wooden

8:10

buildings and fire. There

8:13

was a little event in sixteen sixty six,

8:15

the Great Fire of London.

8:18

London was devastated by

8:21

this fire. More than thirteen thousand

8:23

houses were destroyed, uh

8:25

somewhere almost like seven

8:27

different major churches and landmarks

8:29

were destroyed. I think I remember

8:31

reading Samuel Peep's diary

8:34

entry about this. Did he have one? It was

8:36

it about a different fire? Maybe

8:38

I'd have to, I would have to do more research

8:41

to tell you that. The fact on that I can tell you

8:43

that there were only six recorded

8:45

deaths. Now, there

8:47

were probably a lot more that didn't

8:50

go recorded, but there are only six recorded deaths

8:53

that were connected to the sixteen

8:55

sixty six Great Fire of London. There

8:57

were a lot of reasons why this fire was

8:59

able to rage out of control and caused

9:01

so much devastation. A big one was that London

9:03

at that time had no official organized fire

9:06

brigade. It's a huge drawback.

9:09

Um. But another big one was that a lot of

9:11

the buildings were made out of wood and they

9:13

were very close together. If

9:15

you've ever been through any of the historic areas

9:17

of England and you see like the like, you'll see

9:19

these super narrow alleyways where buildings

9:22

will actually touch above

9:24

the alley, they'll be in contact

9:26

with each other. And that's

9:29

how London at the time

9:31

looked, and so fire could spread very

9:34

easily from from house

9:36

to house because they were pretty much in contact with

9:38

one another. UM.

9:40

So things are different now, obviously, and the

9:42

actual timber we're using is different now.

9:45

Very important when you're talking about a city that

9:48

one of its defining historical moments

9:50

was a massive fire, and

9:52

certainly other cities as well have sure, yeah,

9:55

Chicago has had a massive one

9:57

as well. Planta is a little bit upset about it still,

9:59

Yeah, Atlanta, who was a purposefully

10:02

set fire. But yes, yeah.

10:05

Another possible benefit to

10:08

using wood as opposed

10:10

to other materials is really aesthetic.

10:12

According to the project leaders, the

10:14

Brits might be more receptive to taller buildings

10:17

if they're made out of natural materials rather than concrete.

10:20

Here's where we get a little touchy feely, because

10:24

they say, like, hey, you know how

10:26

sometimes you go outside and

10:28

it just feels nice. I wouldn't

10:30

be great if it felt nice when you win inside.

10:33

What if we talk the stuff that's outside and put

10:35

it inside, then inside would be nice

10:38

like the outside. I'm being

10:40

a little facetious, but that's kind of how it comes across.

10:42

And there is science behind this, like feeling

10:45

of nice science it. Yeah,

10:48

So there have been studies, I'll say

10:51

that now. According to a piece on the University

10:53

of Cambridge website, recent studies have shown

10:55

that timber buildings can have a positive

10:57

health effect, and from an armchair

11:00

psychology perspective, it certainly

11:02

seems intuitive right, the idea that you

11:04

could have this a natural

11:07

setting or a more natural setting may

11:09

feel more relaxing than a very sterile,

11:11

you know, artificial synthetic setting.

11:14

UM, but it's

11:16

it's hard to say, like is that true

11:18

or is that just uh

11:20

an intuition that may or may not have any founding

11:23

in science. Well, one of those studies was

11:25

conducted by the University of British Columbia

11:27

and FP Innovations. But to be fair,

11:29

FP Innovations is a nonprofit Canadian

11:32

organization that's closely tied to the forest

11:34

industry, So you gotta keep that in mind,

11:36

like who is the person, Like what are the entities

11:39

that are sponsoring and conducting the study

11:41

and do they have a vested interest in the outcome?

11:44

But the study claims that would surfaces

11:47

lower the sympathetic nervous system

11:49

activation UH, the S

11:51

and S in other words, so that means

11:54

that areas with wind services tend to

11:56

be more relaxing and can help with stress

11:58

management, which in turn can have a positive

12:00

impact on health in general. We've done episodes

12:03

about the future of stress, and it is

12:05

clear stress UH,

12:07

certain types of stress affected by

12:09

the environment, and and they can have a

12:12

very powerful effect on your health

12:14

and well being. So that's

12:16

that's not in question. So

12:19

in the study, what they

12:21

ended up doing was they held an experiment. They had

12:23

four different office environments with varying

12:25

levels of artificial

12:28

versus natural kind of surfaces,

12:30

like wood surfaces and like. Some had

12:32

a couple of accents that were made out

12:34

of wood. There was one where like the shades

12:36

were all made out of wood, the table, the desk

12:39

was would they had plants

12:41

in the room. There was another one that was made

12:43

out of things like painted press

12:45

board, you know that kind of stuff. So they had

12:47

a different range um that they could put

12:50

the various test subjects into.

12:52

Those test subjects were one nineteen

12:55

university students, And I wrote in the notes,

12:57

I'm always in favor of doing mental health tests

12:59

on univer city students. That's what they're there for. Uh,

13:03

And it is what most mental health

13:06

tests are done on. Yeah. Yeah,

13:08

man, if it weren't for university students,

13:10

science would be lacking. Maybe I shouldn't have

13:12

said mental health psychology behavioral

13:15

psychology, especially to be fair. To be fair,

13:17

I I said mental health is more or less

13:19

kind of a tongue in cheek snarky comment

13:21

on this, but behavioral psychology would be much

13:24

more accurate. So each student was

13:26

assigned to one of those four types of

13:28

office environments. No one was told what

13:30

the study was about specifically. Uh

13:33

So they had no idea what they were, what was going to

13:35

be measured, or how it would be measured. So

13:38

that was, you know, it's at

13:40

least a single blind. I don't know that. I don't

13:42

think it was double blind. I'm pretty sure that people administering

13:44

the test knew what was going on. Uh

13:47

So they had like skin contact sensors

13:49

put on to kind of uh

13:52

detect when there were spikes in

13:54

stress. You know, the idea being that if

13:56

you detect sweat, someone's obviously feeling

13:58

a little more stress than someone who

14:00

isn't sweating that kind of stuff. So

14:03

they put these students in one

14:05

of those four office environments. Each

14:08

student then had to go through three phases,

14:10

again not being told what was happening

14:12

or why it was happening. The first phase

14:14

was they were left alone for ten minutes in the room, which

14:17

actually had their their anxiety

14:19

start to climb because they're

14:22

sitting there wondering what's going to happen to them

14:24

they don't know. Uh. Then the

14:26

next phase was that they had to take an

14:28

audio mathematic

14:30

test, so they're listening to math

14:33

problems and having to work on them. This

14:35

this was in order to again increase their

14:37

level of anxiety. Let's see

14:39

what happens when we take the puppy away.

14:41

Um. And then at the

14:44

end they were left alone again to kind

14:46

of decompress, to to recover

14:49

from the stressful experience they just had.

14:51

And UH. All the data would

14:54

be analyzed later. And according to the researchers,

14:56

the S and S activation was lowest

14:59

in office environ mints that had wood services

15:01

and furnishings. Uh. And they

15:03

were lowest during all three phases.

15:05

So it didn't matter if you're talking about the initial

15:08

phase, the actual test, or the distressing

15:10

part. Those layers were all lower

15:13

in the for students who were in the

15:15

the office environment that had the wood surfaces in

15:17

them. But we gotta keep in mind

15:20

it was a small study. Hundred nineteen people's

15:22

not a lot in the grand scheme of science.

15:25

Uh. And it also had vested

15:27

parties that were involved in

15:29

the administration of this test. And that doesn't

15:31

mean that the test is invalid.

15:34

It doesn't mean that the conclusions are wrong.

15:36

It just means we have to keep that in mind

15:39

when we hear this and not

15:41

just say all right, well case closed,

15:44

it's definite. Now, well, you know, one thing I would

15:46

think is, uh, I

15:48

was just running through this in my mind, wondering how

15:51

I would feel in different different

15:53

material environments as far as

15:55

stress goes trying to do math problems,

15:57

and I would think, you know, I wonder if environments

16:01

that are most like the environments where

16:03

I went to school would be the most stressful,

16:06

uh so like, and that would not be

16:08

wooden environments, so that could be another

16:11

you know, like associations.

16:14

I mean there there's definitely, again

16:17

the gut feeling type of stuff. There's

16:19

definitely some stuff that makes me feel

16:21

that they're onto something here. Even

16:23

if I don't go so far as to say this definitively

16:26

proves to me that that their hypothesis

16:29

holds water, because I think of experiences

16:32

if I had going to like a rustic cabin

16:35

and breathing in the smell of

16:37

like you can smell the wood and

16:39

and it has that very warm tone

16:41

to it, like there is something very

16:44

kind of termites, There

16:46

is something kind of cozy and relaxing

16:49

about that. And uh,

16:52

it's just the question of is that in fact something

16:55

that is scientifically supportable

16:57

or is it just like you know, does

17:00

it have no bearing whatsoever. Well, I mean another

17:02

way you could look at this is you wouldn't even have

17:05

to get to the level of science and talking

17:07

about, you know, scientifically measurable effects

17:09

on stress. You could just say what what do people

17:11

like? More more people would tell you, yeah,

17:13

I like wooden environment. What's what's

17:15

aesthetic? And uh and and there are

17:18

certainly lots of kind of bunk

17:20

psychology experiments into into the

17:22

esthetics of an environment, in the in the color tones

17:24

of an environment that are going to inform uh,

17:27

you know, your opinion one way or another,

17:30

at least your opinion of the scientists.

17:33

That's fair. I often think of like

17:36

my like, I like I like

17:38

the whole cabin get away kind of thing, Like

17:40

I I enjoy that experience, and I enjoy that

17:43

environment. My wife has

17:45

a preference for very modern kind

17:48

of architecture and furnishings,

17:51

which don't necessarily fall

17:53

into that same category.

17:55

But that's what she finds really relaxing.

17:58

So it doesn't necessarily mean that you know,

18:01

the science is wrong or whatever. It just may

18:03

be more complicated than this hypothesis

18:07

or it maybe that's totally correct. It's just

18:09

a study with a hundred nineteen people. It's hard to

18:11

say at any rate. I want to talk

18:13

a little bit about what makes this particular type

18:15

of wood so strong. We we mentioned that it's lots

18:17

of different layers. Um. We're

18:19

specifically talking about

18:21

a type of wood product,

18:23

industrial wood product called cross

18:26

laminated timber or c LT.

18:29

And you're starting to see this being used

18:32

in the UK and Canada fairly

18:34

extensively. It's starting to get

18:37

adopted more widely in the United States,

18:39

especially since it's the possibility

18:41

of of having a new industry in the U S

18:43

where you could, again with good

18:45

stewardship of forests, you have a new

18:48

export you could create for construction

18:50

materials. So how is this stuff made?

18:53

It's really cool? So al right, well, first of all,

18:55

you have to cut down trees. We haven't figured out a way of making

18:57

stuff out of wood without doing that, so

18:59

that's step one. But then you

19:01

have to make boards out of the trees. Um,

19:04

and then you dry the boards in a kiln.

19:06

Oh okay, well, but there you're introducing

19:08

some energy requirements, probably not to the

19:11

same extent that you would be using in the creation

19:13

of cement, right because you're drying it out.

19:15

Obviously, if you were to increase the heat too much, you would

19:17

have some issues there. But yes, well, I'm

19:19

just saying part of what we're trying to avoid is

19:22

like all of the energy absolutely

19:25

burning the cement for such a long

19:27

time and such a high heat use it. Yeah,

19:29

my my guess is that the kilns that used

19:31

to dry boards are operating

19:34

at significantly lower temperatures

19:36

and for less time than

19:38

for cement. But then you take the boards

19:40

and uh so you put

19:42

them so that the grain alternates

19:44

by ninety degrees level by level. So

19:47

some boards are gonna, like all the boards

19:49

are gonna be the same dimension, but in some

19:52

you're gonna have the grain going along the

19:54

long side and some some you're gonna

19:56

have the grain going along the narrow side.

19:58

So you stacks stack

20:00

them with the grain alternating ninety

20:02

degrees um. You make an odd

20:05

numbered stack of boards, usually between

20:07

three and seven. You glue

20:09

them together using a special type

20:12

of adhesive, and then you put it through a pneumatic

20:14

press to press the board together

20:16

and this creates a much stronger

20:19

material that is still relatively light

20:21

compared to alternatives, but

20:23

compared to regular wood, it's more

20:25

dense. And yes, yes, and

20:28

so uh and like I said, this stuff

20:30

can go up pretty fast. Actually watched a video

20:33

where a guy was talking about the process

20:35

of building with the stuff. I was trying to I was thinking

20:37

he was going to talk about the process of making it. No,

20:40

he was talking about using it to actually build. And

20:43

what was fascinating to me was he said, so

20:45

these panels, and the panels were huge, they were like

20:47

maybe like you know, there were several

20:49

feet wide and many more feet long.

20:51

So we can put one of these up every seven

20:54

to eight minutes. So building

20:56

a structure out of that material goes

20:58

pretty quickly compared to other

21:00

types of materials. So that's

21:03

one of those huge advantages. Yeah,

21:05

and c LT isn't the only type of wood product

21:08

that's being investigated for for

21:10

wooden buildings. UM glued slabs

21:13

of bamboo are also being looked

21:15

at, and different treatments for different types

21:17

of wood can make them stronger or stiffer,

21:20

a distinction that we're going to talk about a little

21:22

bit later on. UM or more resistant

21:24

to fungus, which is great to be if your would in

21:26

a building. Um and and some theorists,

21:28

theorists in the industry are

21:31

are even imagining. Sorry, I just thought fungus

21:33

is in nature. You know, if nature makes people

21:35

feel better, maybe you need some fungus in your building.

21:39

I mean packs packs of wolves

21:41

are in nature to bring

21:44

them on. Are you sure, I kind of I mean

21:46

puppy dogs. Um,

21:49

yes, yes, so so some some theorists

21:51

are even imagining that

21:53

that that GMO trees could be genetically

21:56

constructed to provide ultimate

21:58

building materials in the future.

22:01

This has never entered my mind, so

22:03

I've thought tons about GMO crops.

22:06

How do you know how to alter the genes

22:08

of of food crops to make them,

22:11

you know, have higher yields or more

22:13

resistant to herbicides or something like

22:15

that. But yeah, you could

22:17

totally alter the genes of trees

22:19

to produce a different kind of timber if

22:21

you want to. Yeah, something with with more

22:24

stronger, better cellulose, which is really

22:26

the structure that we're talking about in

22:28

terms of the benefits of wood. I'm

22:31

just thinking of genetically modifying mushrooms

22:33

so that smurfs could live in them also

22:37

lovely. So here's

22:39

the question. We we've talked about the

22:41

possibility of going back to using wood

22:43

as a major component in building,

22:46

including skyscrapers, which

22:48

if you had told me about a few years ago, I

22:50

thought would have thought it was crazy. Um,

22:53

it doesn't make sense. Is it actually more

22:56

sustainable and more environmentally friendly

22:58

than the traditional concrete

23:00

and steel stuff that skyscrapers are made

23:02

out of today? Well, okay.

23:05

Proponents say that if if

23:07

wooden construction like this takes off, or

23:10

rather takes off again, UM,

23:12

trees could be specifically farmed for

23:15

for this type of use over long periods,

23:17

so so you know, you wouldn't be destroying the rainforest

23:20

every time you wanted to erect a new apartment building.

23:22

UM. And furthermore, since we're using

23:25

less and less paper, UM, old

23:27

paper timber farms could be applied

23:29

to the trade in the meanwhile, while while we're getting

23:31

our tree farms up to up to standard. UM.

23:34

Furthermore, people say that, you know, trees

23:36

are used to store carbon

23:38

dioxide while they're alive, and they retain

23:41

it when they're dead, So

23:43

so you're helping keep some carbon dioxide

23:45

out of the atmosphere, you've you've you've

23:47

locked that carbon dioxide away, and you're

23:49

growing more trees to replace the ones you've used,

23:52

so you're technically removing

23:54

CEO two from the atmosphere in that approach.

23:58

Also, in terms of g usage,

24:01

WOULD is a better insulator than concrete

24:03

or glass, or steel or aluminum, and

24:06

I mean meaning that it has a relatively low

24:08

thermal conductivity, so that could

24:10

mean savings in terms of heating and cooling and

24:12

you're finished buildings. Um.

24:14

Also, since would, as you said earlier,

24:16

Jonathan, is so much lighter than concrete, we

24:19

would use wayless energy shipping it

24:21

and putting up structures that that contain

24:23

it. So we're talking about a

24:25

smaller energy investment

24:29

in WOULD than it would take for concrete or steel,

24:31

both in the construction and in the transportation

24:34

of construction materials. All right, sure, um,

24:36

And as a bonus to communities here, c LT

24:38

buildings are are typically pre fabricated

24:41

structures, even if they are being individually

24:43

designed. A lot of the construction

24:45

occurs off site, so when they go up,

24:47

they go up quieter and quicker than

24:50

concrete based structures. So that's

24:52

nice. I'm speaking as a human person who

24:54

has apartments going up on either

24:56

side of her house right now, Yeah, I would.

24:58

I would love it if that would is less noisy every

25:01

day at seven thirty in the morning. Right.

25:04

So, let's let's look at some of the

25:06

wooden structures that currently

25:08

exists that are kind of like the models

25:11

that we're working off of to think of these

25:14

potential future projects, like skyscrapers

25:17

made out of timber. Yeah, I was, I was

25:19

looking into this and it's and it's pretty fascinating

25:21

if you're an architecture nerd hopefully even

25:23

if you're not so okay, So, buildings

25:25

that have like a concrete base sometimes

25:28

called a podium in the industry, which

25:30

is like the first floor usually uh

25:32

and then a few upper stories consisting of lightwood

25:35

framing have been around for decades. This isn't

25:37

a particularly new concept. But

25:39

but taller buildings and some

25:42

some made entirely of wood framing,

25:44

but most honestly incorporating some

25:46

steel or concrete elements have been

25:49

have been sprouting up over the past like

25:51

five or six years, um and

25:54

and um Like. The more that I read into

25:56

this, the more puns I came across, and I have not included

25:59

all of them in this industry,

26:02

also growding up. I also came

26:04

across one where it decided to use

26:06

all the fire puns. I thought, well, that's

26:09

kind of tasteless. Yeah,

26:11

it's really catching fire, like,

26:14

um can we can? We not? Anyway,

26:19

So most of these structures

26:21

so far are apartment buildings. In

26:23

Australia and in Europe, there's there's an

26:25

eight story high rise in Finland, ten

26:27

story Forte in Melbourne, and

26:30

the Cube in London and the fourteen

26:32

story Treat which means tree

26:35

in in in Norway. UM.

26:37

In North America, timber buildings are more

26:39

rare, but there are a few projects that are in development.

26:42

There's already a really lovely c LT structure

26:44

in Canada. It's the University of British

26:46

Columbia's Earth Sciences Building UM.

26:48

But but Seattle has planned a

26:51

twelve story mixed use project

26:53

called Framework that's supposedly coming

26:55

over the next couple of years thanks to

26:57

a one point five million dollar grant from

26:59

the US to Partment of Agriculture, which it won in

27:01

a contest for tall wood building designs,

27:04

and if it goes up, indeed, it will be

27:06

America's first tall wood building that's cool.

27:09

Yeah, I gotta say really quickly though, that University

27:11

of British Columbia Earth Sciences building that

27:13

was one of the buildings that was actually

27:16

shown in the video I was watching

27:18

about the construction process, and

27:20

the guy was actually talking about the free standing

27:23

staircase that is inside

27:25

that building, which is gorgeous. Yeah. You look

27:27

at you and he says, like, this thing. This

27:30

shows how strong this this material

27:32

is because it's it's

27:35

anchored to the walls of the building,

27:37

but it itself is a very tall there

27:39

are no beams under it, right, It's

27:42

very impressive to look at the gorgeous

27:44

design of this building. And I'm really impressed

27:46

with some of the approaches that

27:49

I've seen architects take using

27:51

this material in mind, you know, thinking

27:53

like, well, it's gonna be made out of this stuff, so let me take

27:55

a slightly different approach than I would with a

27:58

traditional building. Yeah. Yeah,

28:00

and a lot of them, a lot of them are so gorgeous.

28:02

So like, so, y'all, do do yourselves a favor. If

28:04

you want to look at something pretty, go go

28:06

google like CLT tall

28:08

wood building or something like that, and and

28:10

come up with all of these things but but

28:13

but b Yeah, it's it's fascinating to me

28:15

that a lot of the designs skew decidedly

28:18

modern um, which is

28:20

sort of like the opposite of what you'd expect from like a

28:22

rustic wooden thing. But

28:24

but but but turns out being so beautiful. Yeah,

28:27

it turned well. For one thing, the

28:29

boards that they're producing, they're

28:31

not going to be evocative of like the rough hewn

28:34

log cabin. That's not what we're talking about

28:36

here. It's a very different world when you're

28:38

talking about this industrial wood

28:40

that's been through and and and an industrial

28:43

process. They've been through a pneumatic press for goingness

28:45

sakes, Um, it's it's

28:47

not akin to that

28:50

rustic approach. Uh, And

28:52

yet you get that effect of

28:55

a warm invironing environment. Yeah,

28:58

especially has those I love those tones,

29:00

like the color that you get with

29:03

depending upon the types of wood you're using,

29:05

that you get using this particular type of material.

29:08

So so, there are a few other projects that are in

29:10

the works that I wanted to mention, the aptly

29:12

named Tall Wood Building at the University

29:15

of British Columbia, which is set to be eighteen

29:17

stories high and to provide student

29:19

housing there's a nineteen

29:21

story cultural center slash hotel going

29:24

up in Sweden and a twenty

29:26

story mixed use building going up

29:28

in Vienna. So things

29:30

are moving and shaken in the wood building industry.

29:33

And and honestly, it's at this point

29:36

not as much physics as much as regulation

29:39

that is keeping this from being more

29:41

widespread than it currently is because because

29:43

building codes, as as

29:45

we have mentioned about the fire thing, are really

29:48

a huge hurdle to to wood framed wood framed

29:50

structures. Um. But but but advances

29:53

in the industry could and will hopefully

29:55

lead to updates in both fire codes and

29:57

building codes and getting

30:00

some good, good

30:02

pointy legal distinction among

30:04

different types of wood materials and and different

30:06

combinations of those materials with concrete

30:08

and steel to allow us for increased

30:11

opportunities to to incorporate wood into construction.

30:14

Yeah, and I like I

30:16

like hearing that. I like the idea of

30:19

being able to define these things so that

30:21

we can remove the

30:23

barriers there and and seemore develop

30:25

in this. I love the notion

30:28

of a timber um

30:31

uh, you know, skyscraper. It's such

30:34

it's such a counterintuitive

30:36

idea to me. The only

30:39

thing that I think would be stranger is

30:42

if you built a structure

30:44

out of bone. Yeah,

30:47

how about we build some cities out of bones and

30:49

shells? Yeah?

30:51

When when you Joe

30:53

mentioned the idea of using bone

30:57

or or a bone like material

30:59

to build structures out of the first thing

31:01

I thought of was city of Bones. Sounds like it could

31:03

totally be a novel in the

31:05

Song of Ice and Fire series. I knew

31:07

there was already there had to be a novel called City

31:10

of Bone, and I looked it up. Yeah, there is one urban

31:13

fantasy novel. I'm not quite sure what that means.

31:15

I think it's like with

31:17

tall buildings. And I read some Jim Butcher. Okay,

31:20

Jim Butcher got that urban fantasy

31:22

downpat definitely with wizards and cities.

31:24

Yeah, okay, did they take

31:27

the subway sometimes? Actually,

31:29

magic doesn't interfere with electricity, right, yeah,

31:31

Jim Butcher's wizards. Yeah, he

31:34

makes he makes technology fail around them, computers,

31:36

smartphones, like things that are that

31:39

are necessary to the plot. His

31:42

magic will interfere with those. Cool. Yeah,

31:45

Okay, So how about building

31:47

some tall buildings in cities out

31:49

of out of bone like structures?

31:51

So here comes Cambridge. Again, there's

31:53

a twenty June. Just recently,

31:56

in fact reading this was what gave me

31:58

the idea for this episode. There's

32:00

a June Cambridge University

32:02

research feature on the work of Dr Michelle

32:04

Oyen of Cambridge's Engineering

32:07

Department and OI in works with constructing

32:09

biomemetic materials. We talked about biomemetics

32:12

all the time on this podcast, trying to create

32:15

technology that mimics things we

32:17

find in nature. So a lot of times that might

32:19

be nanomachines or

32:22

or you know, robotics, but in this case

32:24

it's talking about bioinspired

32:26

materials that take after the materials that are

32:28

used to make up tissues in the bodies of

32:30

animals. Um and so the

32:32

type of materials she's been looking into

32:35

in her research have been things like artificial

32:37

eggshell and artificial bone.

32:40

So no surprise that these could be very useful

32:42

in creating things like medical devices

32:45

such as prosthetics and implants.

32:47

But um what if these types of

32:49

materials could also be

32:51

the structural basis for our buildings.

32:54

So here's why these

32:56

are interesting. We already know what it's

32:58

like to try to build a holding out of minerals.

33:01

You know, you've got concrete, cement,

33:03

you know, rock based materials

33:06

that you can build a building out of. But

33:08

the eggshell and bone are not just

33:11

minerals. There. There are a mixture of

33:13

minerals and proteins. Bones

33:15

are about half and half, with the mineral component

33:18

being high hydroxy appetite or hydroxyl

33:20

appetite. It's a calcium based mineral

33:23

and the protein component mainly being collagen.

33:26

Eggshells are a little bit different. They're

33:28

much higher mineral content, only about five percent

33:31

protein. But these combinations

33:33

of minerals and proteins make ideal

33:36

structural materials. There's a reason

33:38

your body uses them. Uh they're

33:40

they're very adaptable, and they're very strong

33:43

and very resilient. So the minerals give

33:45

the material hardness, but the proteins

33:47

give the material toughness. And these

33:49

are actually different physical concepts.

33:53

If you're not familiar, quick refresher. Hardness

33:56

is how resistant a material is

33:58

to permanent change in formation.

34:01

So a material that's resistant to cutting,

34:03

scratching, permanent bending,

34:05

that's a hard material, a tough

34:08

material. Toughness refers

34:10

to how much energy material

34:12

can absorb before it fractures.

34:15

So an easy way to remember this is that toughness

34:18

is the opposite of brittleness.

34:20

Something that's brittle and breaks

34:22

easily is not tough. Uh.

34:25

So many materials are one

34:27

or the other, Like a big piece of rubber might be

34:29

tough but not hard. A

34:32

piece of glass, on the other hand, hard but not

34:34

tough, right exactly. But biomaterials

34:37

like bones are both hard and tough,

34:41

which would come in awful handy if

34:43

you wanted to build a structure out

34:45

of such material. You want something that has

34:47

both of those qualities exactly. So

34:49

how do you build a synthetic

34:52

or artificial biomaterial based

34:55

on the concept behind things like bone

34:57

and eggshell? Well, essentially you

34:59

come by in the mineral components you're using

35:02

with with the sample of

35:04

the protein collagen which you find all throughout

35:06

animal bodies, and you know you can get for

35:08

research purposes. And so a cool thing

35:10

about these two different structures I've brought

35:12

up bones and eggshells is that they have very different

35:15

mineral and protein interacting

35:17

structures. And because of these differences,

35:20

oi And thinks that you might be able to

35:22

create even stronger materials by weaving

35:25

bone inspired templates and eggshell

35:27

inspired templates together into

35:29

the same layer of material. Interesting.

35:33

So it's kind of like, uh, you know, if you want

35:35

to think of it, it's it's like taking a more

35:39

granular approach to what I was chatting

35:41

about with the c LT and that

35:43

you're you're binding. You're binding

35:45

slabs of wood together with a

35:48

ninety degree change in the direction

35:50

of the grain, and that in turn

35:52

increases the strength of the overall

35:54

piece. But in this case, you're talking about two

35:56

totally different structures that you're kind of interlacing

35:59

together to get the best of both. You put

36:01

them together into a lattice type structure,

36:03

and because they have different qualities, they

36:05

sort of reinforce each other. Yeah,

36:08

so, so how how does this stuck up in

36:10

terms of like greenness? Yeah,

36:12

that that's the thing. So the problems with things

36:14

like steel and concrete cement being

36:17

the ingredient, and concrete, they take all

36:19

this energy to produce and they're all these carbon

36:21

emissions associated with the production. Apparently,

36:24

this is much less energy intensive

36:26

process for making these biommetic

36:28

materials takes place in the lab at

36:31

room temperature rather than hours of intense

36:33

firing. But we

36:36

need the biomaterials in order

36:38

to make it happen. So do

36:41

do you have enough collagen lying around.

36:43

To build a skyscraper need

36:47

slaughter exactly

36:49

right now, The obvious way to get collagen

36:52

is from animals. You need it for material

36:54

synthesis, but from animal

36:56

bodies we're back to blood bricks, right. Yeah,

37:00

it's not ideal because

37:02

I mean, for one thing, you would look at a building

37:05

and then you would just naturally

37:07

think how many how many

37:10

pigs

37:13

seals baby seals,

37:15

uh, floors three through seventeen.

37:18

That is why to make this a feasible construction

37:20

material, we probably need to find a way

37:23

to substitute a protein element that doesn't

37:25

come from animals, like a synthetic protein,

37:28

or maybe something that could be derived from

37:31

algae or bacteria or some other farmabile

37:33

organism doesn't have a nervous system to make

37:35

you feel bad about. And on top of that,

37:38

I mean, even you're talking about in the lab, it

37:40

could be created under room temperature

37:42

conditions, which is in fact that's that's a

37:44

huge advantage on

37:46

the energy side. The question also

37:49

beyond where do you get the protein?

37:52

Once you've answered that question satisfactorily,

37:54

where you're presumably not slaughtering

37:57

hundreds of animals or to get to the protein,

37:59

you need The next question is

38:01

can you scale that production

38:04

to a point where it would be useful for

38:06

a real construction project. I don't

38:08

know what the answer is. Oien claimed in

38:10

this piece that that it is scalable,

38:13

interested in can be scaled up in

38:15

the lab. But but obviously

38:17

you know, we don't. We never really tried it, so

38:19

we don't know. So not only are we going

38:22

to have to address the idea

38:24

of changing the types

38:26

of materials we're using to build,

38:29

we also need to rethink the way

38:31

we're actually building stuff today. I

38:33

mean, it does seem like there's some progress. I

38:35

think you said you were seeing some things that there's some

38:37

progress towards things like artificial

38:39

collagen, right, but we may

38:42

not be there yet. But yeah,

38:44

the the whole culture of construction

38:46

is going to have to change, right, because the

38:49

same thing is true probably for using wood

38:51

instead of concrete. I mean, people have

38:53

a way of doing things they

38:56

we use concrete, we use steal.

39:00

So a wooden structure or brick structure, steel

39:02

and glass structure, concrete structure, and

39:04

a bio mimetic bone temple all

39:06

have differences at the blueprint

39:09

stage that you have to study and take

39:11

into account. Sure, yeah. I mean it's

39:14

it may seem like we're we're saying

39:17

the obvious, but this is something that you do have to take.

39:20

You have to keep in mind. It's not like it's

39:22

not as easy as just saying, hey, this other material

39:25

is better, let's go to that now and from

39:27

now on everyone uses this. There's

39:29

a lot of momentum and inertia that's

39:32

built into the systems that we human

39:34

beings have designed. Sometimes

39:36

that's to our benefits. Sometimes it means

39:38

that we feel like progress

39:41

isn't happening because we're not changing as

39:43

quickly as we would like. But it's just a

39:45

it's a matter of fact. It's not something that you can

39:47

snap your fingers and and everything

39:50

changes from this point forward. An

39:52

assembly line is really great at creating your

39:54

your your standard coffee mug. But if suddenly

39:56

you want to make a coffee mug out of bone,

39:59

right, it's yeah, or a little

40:01

bit of grinding to a halt. Right, You're like,

40:03

like, well, we've decided now that the coffee

40:06

mugs are all going to be made

40:08

out of bio mimetic bone, and they're going to like

40:10

skulls. It's going to require a little

40:12

bit of retooling of our manufacturing process.

40:14

Everyone who wants to drink out of a skull for the record,

40:17

I would buy that. Like today, I

40:20

have three coffee mugs that are sugar

40:22

skull designed, so I also

40:24

would have one of those. Uh So, out

40:27

of curiosity, I looked up away in scientific

40:29

papers just to see if there were any more

40:31

specifics that that I could find about

40:33

the details of her recent research. And

40:35

a lot of the research she's been involved in uh

40:38

in one way or another seemed focused on studying

40:40

micro environments or scaffolds

40:42

that can facilitate natural artificial

40:45

lost teo genesis. And of course

40:47

osteogenesis is the process of growing

40:49

new bone cells. It's the process you would

40:52

want to mimic if you're going to try to grow some

40:54

synthetic bone in the lab. So

40:56

there were several papers about using hydro

40:58

gels to simulate the micro environment

41:01

in which bone cells grow. One

41:03

of the most cited was a paper from with

41:06

Annabel L. Butcher and Giovannis

41:08

off a do called nano fibrous hydrogel

41:10

composite as mechanically robust

41:12

tissue engineering scaffolds. What

41:15

does all that mean? So when

41:17

you're when you're doing tissue engineering in the lab,

41:19

cells usually have to be grown on what's called

41:22

a scaffold. It's a it's some

41:24

type of material, often a polymer, that

41:26

gives a shape and an environment

41:28

in which the in vitro tissues can

41:31

assume their function. So it's sort of

41:33

like you need to have a muffin tin to bake

41:35

your muffins in. If you just tried to pour

41:37

your muffin batter onto the oven rack, you

41:39

would not produce ideal muffin. No,

41:42

probably a fire, but no. We

41:44

we've talked about this in the idea of

41:46

three D printing organs for example.

41:49

That's that's scaffolding is absolutely

41:51

necessary, not just for the cells

41:53

to to have like something

41:55

to glom onto, but in order for them to actually

41:58

take on the function that you want them to do.

42:00

Right and uh And in many cases, what you

42:02

want is a scaffold that will

42:04

that will hold a shape while the

42:06

cells can grow around it to assume the

42:09

morphology that you want, but also that

42:11

will itself degrade or disappear

42:13

in some way when the tissue needs

42:16

to fill in that space. So it needs

42:18

to be there long enough to tell the cells

42:20

where to go and guide them into place, but

42:23

then go away when they need to fill

42:25

in all the missing gaps. Uh

42:27

So, hydrogels might be

42:29

a good solution here. Hydrogels are gelatinous

42:33

semi solids. They have some of the properties

42:35

of a liquid and some of the properties of a solid,

42:37

and that they have a constant volume

42:40

and hold their shape like a like

42:42

a solid does. But they can also be disrupted

42:45

by mechanical you know, activity

42:48

like Jello is a good example

42:50

of a hydrogel. When you when you read

42:52

about a hydrogel, just think about something like the

42:54

consistency of jello. And the paper

42:56

concluded that hydrogels make great

42:58

scaffolding for tissue engineering, but

43:01

that they don't have great quote mechanical

43:03

performance, which I'm just picturing.

43:06

That's funny to them, I think, Jello, what what

43:08

is its mechanical performance? Like, yeah,

43:13

but you can improve the mechanical What

43:15

they concluded is you can improve the mechanical

43:17

performance of hydrogels by lacing them

43:20

with a fibrous component or nanofibers.

43:23

Uh So, Anyway, I think that's that's sort

43:25

of the stage that a lot of the research in

43:28

h in the present is at. There they're

43:30

looking at creating these environments,

43:33

uh to grow these materials in interesting

43:37

but back to back to buildings made

43:39

of bones. So if you imagine that we're we're

43:41

getting some kind of biomamentic bone

43:43

or eggshell or bone eggshell composite

43:45

type material, and we're trying to figure

43:48

out how to use this in in building.

43:50

Some other advantages do naturally

43:52

come to mind. One of them is that bone

43:55

inspired buildings ultimately could provide

43:57

not only environmentally sustainable materials

44:00

that are both hard and tough, but think about

44:02

other things bones do. One of them

44:04

is that bones can heal. Bones

44:08

on Star Trek healed crew members.

44:11

Yes, yeah, that's true. We

44:14

should build buildings out of data. We

44:20

have wharves. Oh

44:22

that's true. We must

44:24

stop. No, a broken

44:26

bone where I think about a broken bone properly set

44:28

right can commend itself. Now, it's

44:31

not like that automatically

44:33

a synthetic bone material would

44:36

necessarily be able to do this, right.

44:39

I mean, unless you built osteo blasts

44:41

into it. It's you're

44:43

right, you'd have to set out to give it this capability.

44:46

Um, and it would depend on how it was

44:48

designed. But this is another goal you can strive

44:50

for, and it seems quite achievable if your

44:52

basis for your material is bone.

44:55

So you imagine you could have like a

44:57

bone damn. That's great, a bone.

44:59

Damn fissures appear in the damn

45:01

over time because of pressure, But then those tiny

45:04

fractures could be healed up by a process

45:06

akinned osteogenesis. You

45:08

know. So this is like the song, you

45:11

know, the song Damn bones, damn bones.

45:16

I'm almost ashamed of myself. I

45:19

want to thank the listener who sent in the book

45:21

about puns. It's

45:25

true. I actually have it at my desk. That

45:27

would be sparkling blue. Thank you, sparkling Blue.

45:30

Uh no, this I was

45:32

really fascinated by this topic. It was one

45:34

of those things where as soon as you heard the

45:37

idea of cities made

45:39

of wooden bone, it kind

45:41

of is evocative of like fantasy novels.

45:44

Sure, and I mean I'm picturing that any building

45:46

made made of artificial bone would have

45:48

to be designed based on like hr Geigers. Right,

45:51

yeah, anyway,

45:53

I've heard both. Uh yeah,

45:56

I've said Geiger before, so we've

45:58

got it covered. I'm someone saying, no, it's

46:00

it's g j like, oh shoot, it's

46:03

like that gift Jeff thing. Um. Then

46:05

we're in trouble. But I love

46:07

this idea and I love that, you

46:10

know, this was something that I got to to learn

46:12

about today, Like this was not something

46:15

where I kind of knew about it moving

46:17

into this episode. It was all discovery

46:19

for me, and I love that. I hope that you listeners

46:22

out there experience something akin

46:24

to that. And if you guys have suggestions

46:27

for future episodes, maybe there's some other

46:29

weird or awesome topic that

46:32

is future oriented and you would like us to cover

46:34

it, let us know. Send us an email.

46:36

The address is FW thinking at

46:38

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46:40

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46:43

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46:45

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46:51

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46:59

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47:02

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