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Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

Publisher’s notebook: Small mills, towns lead mass timber movement

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Leadership. Innovation. Entrepreneurship. Risk-taking. These characteristics generate advances that “disrupt” markets, as the first article in our series on mass timber illustrated.

Dave Atkins
Dave Atkins

There is often a narrative that such innovation only occurs in the private sector, but in Springfield, Oregon, the mayor, superintendent of schools, University of Oregon students and faculty all played a role pushing the proverbial envelope.

The mayor and city are putting up public funds to help reduce the risk and expense of the first parking structure built from mass timber. That’s critical.

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They are also working with code officials to embrace the value of experimenting with these new ideas in “green” construction. It is not easy for code officials, as their primary responsibility is to ensure safe structures. They’re on unfamiliar ground.

All of this is part of new product and market development. And Springfield isn’t the lone ranger of mass timber. [Read more…]

Oregon leads nation in use of mass timber for high-rise offices, condominiums

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Lever Architecture’s rendering of Framework.

Oregon is bullish on the future of high-rises built from locally sourced wood, and Portland is the proof.

At last month’s Mass Timber Conference, an all-day tour took visitors to a few of the city’s timber buildings – from a fire station made from wood, including fire-charred siding on the entranceway, to Carbon 12, a classy condominium development in North Portland that, at eight stories, is the nation’s tallest wood building.

At Albina Yards, Lever Architecture founder Thomas Robinson not only touted that four-story masterpiece – the nation’s first to use domestically produced cross-laminated timber (known as CLT) for its structural system – but also his next project: Framework, a skyscraper built of wood. [Read more…]

Era of megafires: How do you want your smoke? How do you want your fire?

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When the Sleepy Hollow fire blew up and threatened Wenatchee, Washington, “no one had that in their slide carousel of previous fire behavior,” said the Chelan County Fire District’s Mike Burnett. Photo: YouTube.com

Paul Hessburg had studied wildfires for three decades when he saw the very scenario he dreads most unfold in his hometown of Wenatchee, Washington.

He shares the story now in hopes of stopping the seemingly endless cycle of such stories.

“In June 2015, a wildfire threatened to destroy my hometown and almost pulled it off,” Hessburg said. [Read more…]

Rockin’ the gospel of sustainability: Chuck Leavell launches ‘America’s Forests’

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Keyboardist Chuck Leavell’s new documentary television series, “America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell,” debuted on Oregon Public Broadcasting earlier this month. Photo: chuckleavell.com

Most of us know Chuck Leavell from what he calls his “night job,” as the longtime keyboardist for the Rolling Stones.

But Leavell has another gig, and he attacks it with equal fervor: forestry.

Whether managing his 3,000-acre pine and oak plantation in southern Georgia or touring the country preaching the need for widespread forest restoration, Leavell is a passionate advocate for the use and perpetuation of America’s forests.

Now he’s taking that advocacy another step with the production of a documentary television series, “America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell,” which aired its premiere episode earlier this month on Oregon Public Broadcasting and at the International Mass Timber Conference in Portland. (You can watch it online here.)

[Read more…]