In a previous article, MetalMiner challenged the environmental benefits of tall wooden buildings by comparing the living tree towers of the Wookiee homeworld Kashyyyk to the wood-framed skyscrapers many architects and engineers say can be the key to solving climate change and making buildings carbon neutral.
In this article, they bring fire safety aspects into question by asking if all skyscrapers were designed using wood instead of steel and concrete, would any major city allow them to be built? Building codes are sets of regulations governing the design, construction, alteration and maintenance of structures. They specify the minimum requirements to adequately safeguard the health, safety and welfare of building occupants.
Some building codes are specifically written with the geographic challenges of the region in mind. The Miami-Dade County building code calls for stringent hurricane-proofing, including walls and windows that can take the impact of a two-by-four shot at 40-mph. Depending on proximity to the San Andreas fault, most California building codes require the resilience of steel and concrete for tall buildings due to potential loss of life and damage from earthquakes.
When the three-day Great Chicago Fire killed 300 people and destroyed 17,500 wooden buildings it effectively ended wooden construction in the Second City for good, paving the way for the advent of the steel-framed skyscraper. The Home Insurance Building became the nation’s first steel “skyscraper” 13 years after the fire.
Flash forward to 2001 and the steel frames of the World Trade Center saved the lives of thousands of workers in the lower floors of the towers on 9/11 by standing long enough to allow them to evacuate, despite the inferno created by purposely crashed airplanes raging above.
While the push for tall wooden building will continue, can building codes even consider wood in the face of natural disaster or terrorism?