In 2019, construction of educational facilities in the United States totalled $98 billion, accounting for more than 101 million square feet of construction and one fourth of non-residential construction. As school districts look to improve the sustainability of their schools and cut costs in the construction process, mass timber provides the perfect solution.
In a recent Keeping Forests webinar, Bruce Lindsey, Senior Technical Director at WoodWorks, discussed the sustainability and cost-savings of wood construction and mass timber in education buildings. As organizations look for ways to advance markets for wood products, educational buildings may be the low-hanging fruit.
“As an industry, we have yet to capitalize on educational buildings, and we see that as a huge market potential for us as school districts continue to grow and expand,” said Lindsey. This eye-opening statistic for many in the forestry industry is reinforced by the fact that U.S. education is predicting that by 2027 K-8 grade enrollment will increase by 4 percent and 9-12 by 3 percent.
Cost Efficiency
With inflation on the rise and many Americans tightening their wallets, school districts will need to find ways to cut construction costs while keeping up with the demand for new schools and renovation projects to accommodate the increasing population. With the average school size at nearly two stories tall, wood is the obvious choice.
Impact of inflation on building costs per building type – an approximate twenty-three percent increase across all construction types. In Total Cost per Square Foot of construction.
CASE STUDY – EL DORADO HIGH SCHOOL
El Dorado High School in El Dorado, Arkansas looks, from the outside, not much different from many other high schools in the country. The 322,500 square foot building was originally designed with steel and concrete but the budget was too high. Maximizing the use of wood framing, the project was able to bring the project 5% under budget, saving taxpayers approximately $2.7 million.
Fast Construction
One of the biggest benefits of building with mass timber is the speed at which the project can be completed. According to ThinkWood, mass timber building construction is about 25 percent faster than traditional construction. Mass timber is modular in nature, which means the lego-style assembly decreases the wait time on each level of the building.
“The beauty of mass timber construction is that once you finish one level of construction, your tradesmen can begin working on that level,” said Dr. Pat Layton, Director of the Wood Utilization + Design Institute at Clemson University, “This differs from traditional built structures, where you must wait until the entire structure is complete before bringing in tradesmen. This expedites the construction process significantly while keeping workers safe.”
This is truly what it means to “build from the ground up.” Mass timber panels are prefabricated and then assembled on site which leads to a 90 percent decrease in construction transportation.
With the recent approval of 2021 International Building Code, mass timber is permitted forType IV buildings up to 18-stories tall (prior to the new code, mass timber was only permitted as the primary structural element for up to six stories tall).. Most states should adopt this code by 2024.
Environmental Accountability
Architects, engineers and developers are continuing to look for ways to bring down the overall carbon footprint of their projects. Wood provides the perfect solution.
Through the process of photosynthesis, forests are capturing CO2 from the air and storing at carbon in the wood fiber of the tree. Mass timber acts as a carbon vault, storing massive amounts of carbon in the built environment for the long-term and drastically reducing the carbon footprint of one of the world’s greatest sources of emissions – our cities. In addition, the continued use of forest products creates an incentive for landowners to keep their forests as forests. Their confidence in markets allow them to invest heavily in appropriate and sustainable land management practices.
At El Dorado High School, the wood that was used for that building was grown in thirteen minutes, stored 3,660 metric tons of CO2, and is equivalent to eliminating 2,100 cars off the road for a year.
Imagine if every building we built had a statistic like that. We would be proud of our buildings and build more like them.
By asking for wood and mass timber over steel and concrete, school districts are leveraging the full power of the forest to build inspiring, sustainable and versatile places for our children to learn, to imagine and to grow.
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