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Timber high rises seem somewhat dangerous from a fire perspective, surely
by idiotsecant 4y ago
Timber high rises seem somewhat dangerous from a fire perspective, surely
- ericmay 4y agoThat’s a good reason not to build them, and keep building heights lower so that neighborhoods, towns, and cities have a good level of density.
- itake 4y agoThat is basically what LA did and they ended up with a traffic nightmare.
- swlkr 4y agoLA has a traffic nightmare because most of the "city" is single family housing.
- colinmhayes 4y agonot that low
- galangalalgol 4y agoWhat is. Agood number? 20 stories? 10?
- bombcar 4y agoI’d say five or six for residential - preferably mixed use.
- j16sdiz 4y agoI believe it is a zoning problem. We need more mixed use land.
- ericmay 4y agoIt’s not really what LA did. LA built suburbs, single-family homes, and no mixed-use development and it was all supported and serviced by auto-only transit. That’s why they have a traffic problem. To see that this is the case you can look to many cities in Europe and how they achieved adequate results without building skyscrapers. These successful cities built single family homes but also apartments, condos, and other living arrangements while also injecting grocery stores, shops, offices, parks, and other amenities into the city and neighborhoods.
- itake 4y agoI think we are saying the same thing. LA limited housing density via multiple policies (including a residential height limit) [0]. When I think of high density cities with low transportation problems relative to the number of residents, I think of Asia where there are not building height limits or setback laws. [0] - https://www.jamescolincampbell.com/los-angeles-height-districts/ https://www.jamescolincampbell.com/los-angeles-height-distri...
- ericmay 4y agoI see what you mean. I think of things on a spectrum where Asia is one end of the bad spectrum (too dense), and then LA or Houston is going to be on the other end of the spectrum. A city like Amsterdam is in the sweet spot where you have all the benefits of density and you can still have a single family house or an apartment, access to good transit and locally grown food from nearby farmers, and offices and coffee shops within walking and biking distance. They're more resilient too because you're not as reliant on fossil fuels for heating or cooling or construction, you can do maintenance on your own home (most likely) and can do retrofits for new technology, to name a few.
- itake 4y ago> Asia is one end of the bad spectrum (too dense) I am curious why they would be considered too dense? My only issue when living Vietnam was lack of noise pollution laws.
- swlkr 4y agoYou wouldn't build timber high rises. You would only build buildings ~4 stories tall.
- voisin 4y agoThere are 10+ storey timber high rises in Canada now. The building and fire codes are being updated all across the country. Turns out heavy timber is actually pretty decent for fire - it chars before it fails whereas steel loses its strength at high temps.
- swlkr 4y agoHard agree here, buildings anywhere between 4-12 stories are fine. I don't consider buildings < 13 stories high rises, I consider those mid rises.
- galangalalgol 4y agoIt also expands. Sometimes pushing walls apart letting floors fall. I asked a neighbor who is a firefighter what his nightmares are made of. He said steel girder floors silently expanding and pancaking him and his best friends.
- jeffbee 4y agoWell, they do build tall timber buildings. The thing is they are virtually solid wood, with corresponding fire resistance ratings. I'd much rather be in a mass timber high-rise than a stud-and-cavity mid-rise building in a fire.
- User23 4y agoThey’re called 1+5s.
- coryrc 4y agoTimber is type 4, not type 5.
- 4y ago
- tigerlily 4y agoMass timber structural members actually perform quite well under fire conditions. It takes quite a lot to burn through a big lump of solid wood.
- UberFly 4y agoThough like we witnessed with the twin towers, all you have to do is weaken them.
- defterGoose 4y agoRight, but wood is also a great insulator compared to steel, so where a steel beam's yield strength would go down quickly throughout, you're only going to burn the outer layer of the beam, allowing it to retain most of its strength. /Hand-wavey-assertion
- ars 4y agoWood doesn't quickly weaken during a fire. You slowly lose material as it burns, but the char actually protects the remaining wood. Obviously it will eventually burn, but it's not as fast a process as you might imagine.
- dymk 4y agoWood doesn't melt
- idiotsecant 4y agoi think the problem is that wood self-propagates fire.
- Barrin92 4y agonot really because the load bearing parts don't tend to burn (the same way a log doesn't because the charcoal layer eventually stops the fire). That ironically even may make them somewhat safer than concrete which tends to crack. The largest currently existing timber high rise as far as I know stands in Norway and is about 81 meters tall.