Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Special Guest - Michaela Harms - Mass Timber: Not A Gateway Drug, Just Highly Addictive
Tired of hearing that mass timber is “promising” but not practical? We dig into what actually moves the needle: turning raw products into clean, repeatable systems that installers love and owners can price with confidence. No fluff—just the playbook that took projects from pause to go, even as tariffs and supply shocks rattled budgets.
We start with the shift from panels to platforms: shaft wall systems that swap in for CMU without fuss, union training and mock‑ups that build real‑world confidence, and a timber bay approach designed for warehouses and data centres. Then we unpack a standout case study—the Amazon final‑mile warehouse in Indiana—where early alignment around a mass‑timber‑forward hybrid, local forests, and a tight grid delivered speed, beauty, and over 40 sustainability strategies. When teams coordinate around the module, cost and schedule stop fighting each other.
Data centre interiors get a rethink too. A patent‑pending CLT base for electrical equipment skids replaces thick steel plates, shortens lead times, and can generate significant sustainability wins. Pair that with the rise of modular, edge data centres and you’ve got a new standard for fit‑out speed and embodied carbon reduction. Along the way, we make the case for hybrid construction as the default future: concrete where it belongs, steel where it performs, and timber where it excels. Use a practical “purity” lens and real invoice volumes to find the tipping points for cost and carbon, region by region.
This conversation champions regional species and honest specs—span tables over wish lists, performance criteria over perfection. Knots are not defects; they’re the story of the forest. And that story extends to circularity: repeatable grids that enable disassembly, second‑life panels, and cross‑market reuse, all supported by a healthy whole‑tree economy that includes sawmills, bioenergy, and paper. Subscribe for more grounded, system‑level insights, share this with a colleague who needs a faster path to low‑carbon builds, and leave a review to tell us which system you want to try next.
You can access more information here:-
Amazon DII5 Warehouse - Shout out to ZGF Architects and KPFF Engineers
Ladies and gentlemen, we're the moment you allow me, hey, Paul Kramer, your host.
SPEAKER_01:Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world today. This is Paul Kramer with the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. Back with another special guest. I normally say special guest, this is probably an extra spicy, crispy special guest, uh, because she's been on the show before and we had a real laugh last time and we had a great conversation. And as usual, nothing ever goes to plan on my podcast. So we're planning to do nothing again. Um but Michaela, welcome back to the podcast again. It's been all 14, 16 months, something like that. A lot's changed. Uh, tell us how things are going for you and what's the biggest thing in the world for you today being produced out of your plant, which is made up of multiple parts, which we affectionately call Frankenstein.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Frankenstein, happy Halloween, happy spooky season. I love it.
SPEAKER_03:Happy Halloween to you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, things are going really well. Um, I'm glad to be back. I I'm really honored that you kind of talk about us as like the Seinfeld of Mass Timber talking, you know, the show about nothing. I'll take it. Um, but no, we'll talk a little bit about Mass Timber at least, right? I think.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, that's correct. But we we don't plan anything. Like Jerry never planned anything, it just the show organically grew, right?
SPEAKER_02:So it's like it's my favorite kind of show, I have to tell you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh no, things are going great. So, you know, we've had a I think that the the most of the North American industry would say we've had an interesting year. Um, but you know, there's always positives in and silver linings to things. So this last year has been a little tough from just kind of the certainty of of the market and fluctuations in pricing with tariffs and things like that. Uh, with Sterling, you know, we are 100% US grown, manufactured, um, and and sourced company. So there are some of the aspects that our our dear friends in this industry are dealing with that we aren't when it comes to the lumber side of things, but that does not mean that other things aren't affected. So, like we're still seeing maybe it's the mechanical system that doubled in price, or maybe it's this other thing. So, one of the things I just want to remind everybody, you know, as much as I truly believe in and want to support as much domestic industry as possible, we also have to be a bit uh realistic about a global economy that we live in.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so that's been for all of my dear friends in this industry, um, specifically construction, we're all just working together and saying, okay, how can we keep these buildings rolling? And I would say what we experienced at the beginning of the year was just kind of a pause. Like everybody's like, okay, let's wait and see. Let's kind of see what's happening. Um, and then, you know, that thaw started over the last few months. And I think a lot of that is money doesn't like to sit, especially people that have a lot of money, they like their money moving, making more money. So eventually markets open back up, right? So we're seeing construction getting back into the swing and people making decisions again and lots of really cool, exciting projects. We have a few university projects, a few multifamily projects. But I think what what this year has really allowed us to reflect on is our commitment to US supply chains, um, and our commitment to US forests and and what that means for a construction project as a whole, you know, what that means for a story of a whole construction project that might be coming from everywhere, but what you can tell with that story and with that tree and with that product.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and then, you know, we I think last time we talked about I've been really interested in more productized approach to mass timber. And we've done a lot of that work over the last year of launching very easy entry product lines. I've been calling some of them, like our shaft wall system, like the gateway drug to mass timber, because we have all these great GCs who have no interest in mass timber. They don't care, you know, they're doing the stuff the way they've always done it. But but for shaft walls with the speed of construction, the ability to build it at any time of year, not having to stop every six feet for inspections, um, they've just really loved it as a product. So that's what we really, you know, that was the ethos at the beginning. How can we get this into the wider construction market? And now these kind of easy entry Lego like products are really starting to help us, you know, get get there and and and just pump out material and replace what we can and and support the teams we can.
SPEAKER_01:I never pictured you as a pusher. Um, I really Oh yeah. Yeah, I never thinking gateway drugs and and hooking people onto something. Um, but you know what? That fanaticism around mass timber is probably the thing people need. It's infectious, um, it does create difference, and that difference can support people rather than be, you know, uh destructive in society. We think it's constructive, and and I guess that's where the beauty of it lays. But that's great to hear. I think that globally we've seen a shift in construction markets. Similarly, down here in the Southern Hemisphere, interest rates certainly uh they trickle through from triggering the housing prices, the capacity to borrow, and then that slows down the commercial activities. And I think we find that that really does play out sort of 16, 18 months after you see an and and a reaction by the reserve bank. And so I think we're seeing similar trends in Europe as well, here in Australia, and and and what you've just told me maps on as well for the US. So it's it's good to see how the markets are starting to come back now. Um, people are going, we can't just lock everything up, we've got to open up, and and the projects will come forthwith, I'm sure. So yeah. Speaking of projects and thinking about what you've done since we last jumped on the podcast. Um, by the way, I just gotta say, since you went on Nick and Brady's podcast and this podcast, your fame has grown exponentially, and you are now like getting invited across all these, all these events across the US. And we're seeing you pop up on LinkedIn all the time, and it's really fantastic to see you as a rising star. So kudos.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's so kind. I'm like really I'm like, oh that's very nice.
SPEAKER_01:I think if Nick and Brady and I got together in a room, we'd probably say, oh no, we we we we made her. Yeah, we made her. We're like the Hollywood.
SPEAKER_02:You guys can have it. You can have it, I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I think that they would be um applauding as well from the sidelines. So yeah, we're big super fans uh collectively in industry. And I noticed there was two big megatrends. You've been talking about projects specifically and products and systems. Let's go with products and systems first. You mentioned the shaft wall system. I have long thought, and so have many others that I've been speaking to, that systemization is the way forward. It's not just about panels and it's not just about bits of Gluam and little bits of um CLT together. It's it's it's systems. You've seems to have shifted your product focus from products to systems. How did the genesis of that happen? Was that something internal or did you have external inspiration? What was the give us some ideas about how that's eventuated?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I mean, I think the industry trends that way anyway. And I think that new products start in those like high-end projects and then turn themselves into systems eventually for adoption. So, like, I'm not gonna say it's all internal. Like, I do think there's definitely this external thing that drives that and drives scale, right? And so we're following the format for scale. Internally, though, you know, I am so blessed and lucky to have such a phenomenal design and engineering team. Um, and we we really reacted to what we learned on projects. So we had a couple multifamily projects. We had our uh Fort Bragg um military hotel project. And just in kind of like talking with our installers, this like excitement about the shaft wall system started to really come out. Like, oh man, it was so easy how quick that thing went up. It was so, you know, it was really like almost a one-for-one replacement. Um so that was like what we first reacted to. We're like, hey, you know, and we know that there, and there are other companies that have shaft wall systems. Um, the nice thing with us though, is we're kind of we're taking a different approach, which is something we tend to do, right? But more of that kind of platform um level at a time approach, um, and almost more Lego piece-like. And I think that's really accessible as a change from CMU. You know, you can go into the big, tall one-piece shuffle, but there's extra bracing. There's a lot of things that are some behavioral shifts. Whereas when you're just talking to a framer who does, you know, four over ones all day, it's very easy to be like, hey, you know, this is like four pieces. You put it up as you go. There's not a lot of extra work. And that's why, that's why we've seen such adoption for it, especially for like the lodging industry, multifamily, these ones that just like it's a staple. It also can go with, you know, pretty much any elevator system. So we know that there's some issues with kind of sourcing of that stuff. So when you can replace stuff out really quickly because it's so easy to fasten into a mass timber system, there's just all these added benefits. Um, and and like again, we just want to keep playing with that Lego P system-based uh approach. That's really how our CL Tower shaft wall system came to be. It came from projects listening to our installers. I mean, number one, I'm always listening to installers because those are the people I want to keep happy. Um, and that that that's been a big push. And so as that really manifested, we kind of moved on to okay, we know that there's training mock-ups. You know, we always see that in our specs, like, hey, I want a mock-up. How can we make a system for that, for this accessibility of training and education? Um, so we both put one of those together and been really helping out with carpenters unions, iron workers, GCs that are looking to self-perform and kind of just feel the material and learn. Um, but I think the one that I'm most excited about right now is our timber bay system. So that is really focused on um like a pre-engineered solution for big boxes, warehouses, data centers. And we're just seeing so much excitement around that space. And it aligned really well with um a large warehouse that Amazon just put their PR out about. And it's really cool to see a company so proud of all the sustainability choices that they made, but who collaborated and coordinated with us very early to do it the right way. I mean, this thing flew up. Things went so well. It wasn't like you know, you know how those with a lot of projects like that that are kind of the first ones, yeah, a lot of hiccups. Yeah, we there was just something about this team and the way that they looked at it so early. Um, and they really built that system off of our module. Yeah. And by doing all of that, cost came together, speed came together. Um, and and it was just a stellar team all around. And I give Amazon a lot of credit for taking the initiative to try something that matters to their sustainability and and speed. You know, obviously they carry a lot about speed. So but it was really cool to see just, you know, we were one small part of the sustainability initiatives of those warehouse of that warehouse and what what they're looking at going forward. So um super fun to see it. We hope to see a lot more, and we're happy to support, you know, this this kind of hybrid model. We know it's not all gonna be 100% timber, but how can we mix it together and just take these steps, take these steps forward?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh, there's a lot in there. Uh let's go back to the training module, right? So we know that uh understanding of how the systems work um breeds, I guess, um comfort in using the system. So it's a very smart way of getting as much CLT or systems GLT, CLT combinations into the hands of people who are going to ultimately end up using this product and getting them comfortable with knowing it, right? So that's a great initiative. And then to go from that, from what happens on the contractor side on site and translate that through your engineering marketing team and then into a product system and then sending it out and then having that connect back to a project. Now that's the gold standard. That is the gold standard.
SPEAKER_02:We really want to see that happen more. You know, that's we're we're at the beginning stages of all of that, but that's yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:But I think credit should go to you and to others that do that. Um, I know Storenzo was very much similar in their um ideation of product systems in the early days, they still do it, of course, but I'm talking 10 years ago. Um, I actually think the intelligence is in mapping that process. It's it's how do you capture that intelligence from the site, how do you then bring that into the engineering realm? How do you then productize, systemize that, and then how does that get marketed? And I think that's the smarts because people don't see the product as being a function of process, and it's it's mapping that process that's really important. So if you haven't done it, do it. If you're doing it, do more of that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, uh you like hit the nail on the head because what we're seeing with so much of the like more niche, master more project-based work, is it's almost like you reinvent the wheel over and over, right? Or or we're designing connections that don't think about the end, or designing a system that doesn't think about the manufacturing. And we're just, you know, it's like all these disconnects that happen. And this is something I talk about a lot, specifically on the supply chain front, of like being very disconnected to from the tree and the lumber, and like, you know, like we have to design for that whole system. And that's very much like how my brain works. And so it's really cool on my team to have these engineers and architects who are very designed for manufacture and assembly, are very construction site focused and based because it's not common. Yeah, it's really not common. You know, our director of design, her early career was all on construction sites, all construction management work. That's so rare to have that connection. It doesn't mean you're an expert, but it's exactly what you just said. You see the process.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that's where we're really trying to meet the industry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. And I think the extension on top of that is we're now seeing designers at the front end that are outside of companies like yours, uh thinking about the future of that building from a circularity perspective. So either slowing its use, adaptive reuse for disassembly or even removing fixings from the system and using natural joints and connection systems like XTAL, for example. Uh and and and that same process thinking is what they need as well. And I think for the first time, we're starting to see this nexus, this connection between what's happening on site being thought about up front in the design realm, but not just for the first life of that building, potentially for adaption and adoption and potentially disassembly at the end. Now that has got a whole lot of other challenges. We could do another podcast on that, but just to give you just to give you uh and the audience a bit of a taste art, you know, they do have remanufacturing plants for Glue Lamb in Europe. Uh there would be a conceivable future, I think, with the volume of CLT out that you may have re-manufactured plants for CLT. So we are not there yet, but we could get there. Um, but it's great to hear that your thinking process as well.
SPEAKER_02:And I, one of the things that was always kind of in my head early on, and why so we just released a design manual and it was really focused on engaging architects and engineers in that process-based thinking. Hey, what's the front end of how of what goes into a project and a product? You know, what size is that lumber? Where does it come from? All that kind of stuff. To what's the most efficient grid where you can repeat things as much as possible? How can you make this as Lego, like putting, and I just was at an amazing conference in Colorado called Housing Colorado, and it's all focused on affordable housing. And I was on a panel with um some folks from Cunningham Group, who's an architect based uh in the US, and um Ryze Modular out of um Minnesota. And what we also what we told all the architects in the room was these constraints are not supposed to limit creativity. Yeah, they're supposed to make sure that the thing can get built. They give you power to ensure that you value engineered from the beginning, and they're supposed to expand your creativity, they're supposed to give you possibility and kind of a limitless possibility, but just with saying, hey, this is how it can happen over and over and over again and scale. And one thing I've always had in my mind, just because we are such a large site access and industrial business, is if we can get large enough and repeatable enough buildings like multifamily or hotels on a consistent grid where let's just say 80%, 80% of the pro of the panels stay that same rectangle, then you come to deconstruction time, all those panels could go into site access markets.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we could, you're very like, I mean, you could have the circularity of going back into a building, or you could have the circularity of of roll rolling through an entirely another market that's been supported by this thing. And I just think there's such a cool thing going on there, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think again, it's the limitation, limitations in our minds, right? That limit our thinking. It's it's about trying to expand that thinking. And maybe right now in 2025, we don't have the answer for what we'll do with these buildings that we have that we're establishing now at the end of their life. But I think at some point someone will come up with a solution and go, we're gonna have all these buildings coming to a natural progression end. What are we gonna do with them? Because we don't want to um reduce the materials back to ash and create more carbon. We want to do something different with that, right? So I don't know what the answer is right now, but that thinking, lateral thinking about access maps from a building, that's exactly the sort of thinking we need.
SPEAKER_02:100%. And I think what's cool is um I'm keeping my eyes on the Netherlands because you know, I think over the last five to ten years, they've had that initiative of everything being deconstructed and being thought of to be deconstructed. And when you start in this kind of like mindset in a in a smaller, smaller region and really focusing on what they're doing and what works, it's really cool that they're kind of setting the stage for what we might be seeing coming down the road.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they said it from Delft University. Most of the people are at Delft and they um they think about these things, and that's I'm actually connected with them too through the research world, not physically connected with them, I'm not associated, but I read their work, right? And so influences the work I do and influences what we talk about on podcasts, and so there's a real plausibility about what can happen in the future from a circularity perspective. I think that's absolutely the key point. Uh, since we last spoke, we had Microsoft announce their data center, and you've alluded to it with Amazon. Without giving too much away, tell us a little bit about the Amazon project, how big it was, et cetera, et cetera. Whatever you can tell with us uh about what you can tell us about AWS.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So they just released everything on it um this month. I think they were really excited to show off again the sustainability initiative. So this was a final mile warehouse. And um, you know, Amazon is really, and a lot of most of these tech companies have been really kind of going, all right, we like mass timber. Like this is this is something that we can do. They're gonna be building. I mean, that's the thing that we all have to be aware of is we're gonna have these warehouses, we're gonna have these status centers. Let's do the least harm and do the best thing we can do while we continue to build this infrastructure that supports our lifestyles at this point, right? Life has changed a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:I think cloud-based, everything. It's all changing.
SPEAKER_02:I know. Oh, I it's it's uh it's you know, there this is the closet thing of like, where do we build these data centers? And instead of this, not in my backyard thing, but but it's it's it says, okay, if if we're I'm not much of a scroller myself, but I I see it, I know it's happening. If we're scrolling, you know, we're going to need that data. We're going to need these data centers. So how do we do that with the least amount of harm? And that's what I love to see from these companies that I'm not gonna get that give them the complete out yet, but they're starting to think about it. And so with this final mile warehouse, um, it's in Indiana, and they have 40 different sustainability strategies on this. So to me, it's telling that they're saying we're thinking about this, we're putting effort into this. This is a pilot that we want to repeat. Um, and it's so beautiful. Like you look at the pictures, and it's it's it's gorgeous. It feels nice. That material came from like a hundred some miles. Our plant is super close to this spot. And so it's really cool to like honor the forest, bring it into a local community, have it come from jobs that were from the local region. Yeah, that's what we want to keep seeing because they can repeat that everywhere. They can support the regions that they're putting these buildings into and putting these things into everywhere. And so what what I am seeing now with the data center space is like I would love to see more of that circularity mentality, especially with utilities and water and the building itself. And I think it's coming, but it's definitely also something we all need to be saying. Hey, we know this is gonna happen, but let's let's demand some strategies, right? And that's probably gonna happen at municipal and and regional levels, most likely. Um, but we are definitely um working on the interior data center products too. So we've partnered with a company called EvoLink Systems. Um, and they're they traditionally make these steel electrical equipment skids for quickly building out the interiors of data centers.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it's phenomenal how much of this stuff is in there. And what we learned, um, we have a patent pending on this project on this product, but if you can replace the base steel, which is usually a very thick steel plate, it needs to be tapped and dyed specifically for specific equipment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it's and the timelines are kind of long, and they're building these things really fast. If we we we we have a CLT now based skid system, yeah. And I can tell you, most of these data centers, they're looking at it and going, we can get almost more sustainability credits out of this product than the building itself. Yeah, and so that's again that thinking outside of the box. Where are places where this product, and it's kind of a fun mix between structural and site access, it's like almost like right in the middle there, but that product, I think, is just again showing me they are thinking, they are looking and they are saying we know we gotta do better.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And and so it's really cool to see the adoption around that. Um, and even like regionalized um edge data centers, these modular boxes for data centers that are more edge-based and smaller and regionalized. We have a huge a big partnership there too. So more to come on that. I'm hoping we can talk a lot about that next year when we see each other. Um but it's all it's it's all built in what we started with. Yeah, what is the process end to end where you look at it holistically and say, how do we make this work across that whole system? And then it's that's how you get scale. And and the mass timer industry, we got like all of us have to just drive hard in that direction so that we're not niche anymore. Yeah, and I we're so close, we're like so close, you know? Yeah, we're almost not that bad.
SPEAKER_01:I think the extent of the plants and the way that organizations are moving, it's in the right direction. Hopefully, the pipeline continues to sustain. But what I think more importantly is how does the industry morph into what's required by industry to meet the various industry objectives or goals? Because not every project has a sustainability front, not every project is looking at replication. Um, however, where you can fit in and where you can find those markets and access those markets, and and that plugs in as a natural fit and everybody wins, I think that's the challenge. And I'm not sure I see too many people come to me and say, hey, listen, we're doing this innovative new thing with this organization. I think we're all tapped into where we need to be. It's just execution now. It's understanding that process and then executing, right?
SPEAKER_02:I think we're gonna see some uh big shifts. You know, I I think you and I've been in the nasting registry enough to say, like, oh, we've seen some big shifts, right? But like this is kind of a precipice, they think of like it not being a niche material anymore. We're real, especially with hybrid construction. I think that's like now that we've all accepted that, I mean, even we look at American Institute of Steel, like they're into mass timber now. The iron workers are into mass timber now. Like, we're something's bubbling right now that's just gonna shift this thing over the edge. And you're not gonna have to say it's just the sustainability, it's the speed, and it's the accessibility, it's that's where we want to go. We wanna go to it just being this like, yeah, of course, there's another thing we're doing, and it's just typical. I just want it to be like typical, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Doctors. I think hybrid is hybrid is the is the way it's all going. And and I was on a panel in Melbourne just this last week with uh architects who've been around since 2009 in Australia using CLT. And the big shift on that panel was. What do we consider the future? And the future is definitely hybrid. And so, as a group of individuals back in 2022, we decided to work on a scale to work out what is hybrid and what is pure mass timber. And we worked on similar concept of purity, like you would in chemistry when you're mixing together. And so we determined that sort of below 50% is called mass timber, and above 50% is starting to go into hybrid and towards full hybrid, right? So you've got these levels of purity. And that midpoint is probably something like uh, you know, uh concrete basement um sub-sort of structure with car parks, etc., and plant and equipment to one or two levels and then concrete transfer, and then you've got your mass timber building on top. Okay. The mass timber building is could be pure on top, it could all be mass timber, but it might be concrete core with steel outriggers with CLT floor plates and a facade that chases up the side with um internal walls being uh cold form steel or or timber studd and frame, right? And so what is what is pure mass timber versus hybrid? And I think if you look at the percentages of the materials in the building and you work on this purity scale, you can determine where the building fits and sits. And so that's a really innovative concept that we worked on. We never released it. I don't know why we never released it.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like, send it to me. I had to see this thing. I love it, the purity scale. Yes! Was there was there a cost element to looking at this too?
SPEAKER_01:Uh purely based on volumes of material, based on invoices. So, you know, interesting call. You would have to have material arrive at site. And we thought, well, no one's gonna invoice unless the material is going to be that volume to site. Because why would a builder pay for something that they're not gonna use? So it can't come from design properties, it has to come from a post-audit um of the project to determine what its purity level is through through invoiced volumes, because volumes on the invoices don't have a fluctuation based on currency, and they don't have a fluctuation based on um the amount that someone charges. But if at every uh cubic meter or square meter or square foot or cubic foot, um you would have um uh that listed on the invoice. So you would look through, and you can black out all the columns for sales data because you don't need that. You don't want to know the dollar values, you just want to know the volumes that were invoiced. And so, very much like Green Star or LEED or any of those other big programs that use the same philosophy about transfer chain of custody, we would think that that would tap into that chain of custody process as well.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah, very interesting. I I've seen a lot of that kind of like dynamic analysis with um, you know, as you're like scheming hybrid style buildings from the sustainability front, right? Like you can kind of fluctuate here and there, size, geometry, and kind of see where it lands from the sustainability perspective. I'd love to see, and I think we're gonna learn a lot of this over the next few years as all these hybrid buildings go up, is this what is that tipping point in the purity scale, maybe where where cost is just like bing, this works, and then where what's the tipping scale where sustainability really works and how do those all tie together? Because I think if we all look at that data together, a lot of us are gonna go, wow, this is pretty obvious. Yeah, we should have known this, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. The only problem It might just be the new phase. Yes, the only problem with LCA is the assumptions for each project are at the eye of the beholder, right? So there's no standardization on that, which makes it difficult to do comparisons unless it's in your own organization and you have your BIM for mass timber hybrid, and you have your BIM for conventional and you look at all the factors across your two buildings in a repeated measures way, otherwise you just can't figure it out.
SPEAKER_02:I'm with you. I'm with you. We we can't generalize too much, but you know, I think it'll it'll be really cool to see that data come together in some ways as we get more precedence out there because it's not stopping, you know, like and and then regionalize it. What does that look like in the different areas of Europe? What does that look like in the different areas of North America? Like, what does that look like in Australia versus New Zealand? Like it's gonna look different because we all have different supply chains.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, and different timber supplies, and that's the main thing. Exactly. The species of timber really um dictates what your product will actually be. And so it's about do you have to compensate for um a lower strength per dimensional thickness for your panels? Um, do you have the capacity to treat versus not treat? What does the treatment add in terms of weight, um, durability, resistance, etc.? I mean, all of these factors, there's so many of them. Um, one day someone's gonna do a project and have a look at them globally and come and tell us what the pattern looks like. But yeah, it's it's it's it's an anomaly, right? It's it's specifically.
SPEAKER_02:I think about the beauty of wood though. This is this is the this is the hill I'm dying on right now in a good way. But like the beauty of wood is that unique regionalized thing, you know, and that that's what I've been kind of talking a lot with. It goes back to us saying, okay, how do we really connect people across that process and across the supply chain? You know, there you you might really want to work with a local species that might have a little bit of a lower design value. And I always am careful about saying that because it doesn't mean it's worse wood, it's just different wood and different trees and different species categories, right? And you just design differently. So when we talk about these systems, the systems also need to understand the inputs. So we we we have three different species categories that we work with for our CLT, all domestic, and they have different design values. So those project or those products and projects are are designed a little differently. But that's why you release span tables, and that's why you say, hey, if you want spruce pine for self from Michigan, look start with these span tables, understand what your specs say. I think that's one of the biggest issues we've seen is there's like things that are in specifications that are just not even possible that don't honor the beauty of a tree and that don't honor the different categories of species that are out there, um, and maybe have unintentional consequences. And that's when we're that's like another direction that again, that beauty. Like I love the beauty of how trees are so different and how wood is so different, and the tone, the feel, the strength, the density, all of that is so different, even just throughout a forest of the same species. And and what we're doing is working with it, working more symbiotically with it, and getting people connected to to that, because I swear I still think there are people that don't know that wood comes from trees. Like, and my my my thing lately has been we we've had some like specs from architects that are like, I want no knots, zero knots, and we're like, trees with no branches are no fun to climb. Like, people are hearing me say this too much now. Like, trees are meant to have branches and they're meant to have character and they're meant to have beauty. Like, if that's what you want, you don't want wood. We gotta make that connection. We gotta remind people.
SPEAKER_01:And that's the question are they happy with finger jointing instead of knots then? Are they like it's so funny? Is that the is that the trade-off?
SPEAKER_02:I know. What's the trade-off? Exactly. I want a tree that's been genetically engineered to never have a branch, you know? And you're like, well, do we really want that? Is that good for the forest?
SPEAKER_01:What did that uh trees without branches without branches without leaves without leaves without a tree? So you won't you're just using concrete, really.
SPEAKER_02:I know that's exactly what it goes back to. Yeah, it's been my that's been my latest one is like I I love that you brought it up because like, no, let's honor the beauty of timber that's coming from Australia and all the different species you guys have. And it's just let's keep honoring that and what a cool material that we can put it together the same way and understand the difference in those strength categories, and and then design for it. You can design for your local forest or your regional forest or your domestic forest, whatever that is. And and we all have that opportunity. Every country has that opportunity. How cool is that? Yeah, I think we just have to make that connection.
SPEAKER_01:I do agree, and I think that connection's based on performance. So you work on a performance criteria for the project that you need, and that's it, right? You just say, here's what I need to perform in this particular function within this aspect of the building, and then that is that is it. That's all you need to know. Everything else will fall into place around that. So working on performance means you're not having a discussion. Performance may include, um, I was on that same panel I was speaking about earlier was a lady named Fiona Dunnan, and she's an architect, interior designer. She wants to use the CLT walls as the interior aesthetic as well. And so she wants essentially an industrial side and a finished furniture side, right? And she builds her buildings. There's one famous one for a big developer that she had as a client called CLT House that won an award in Australia, and she did exactly that. It was an extension, and she used the structural wall as the aesthetic, and she celebrated the beauty of the biophilic environment that she created inside this building. And that taps into exactly what you've been saying.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, so cool. I have to look that one up. I know I've heard it. Yeah, oh, please do.
SPEAKER_01:I'll send you the link. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So where to next? What are you gonna do in the next year looking forward with your crystal ball? What's gonna come on the horizon for you before we catch up again? And I'll have to make sure it's about Halloween now so we can jump back on before Halloween.
SPEAKER_02:I know, I know. Um, let's see. What's to do on the horizon? Well, I'm I'm adding an addition to my family in February. So that's a little bit, you know, we have to think about our own sprouts too, and not just the ones out in the forest. Congratulations, so that's fun. Thank you so much. Um, but from the sterling perspective, um, and just, you know, I always talk from the general mass timber perspective uh as well. I like to be more of an industry advocate. Um I I see these hybrid warehouses really taking off. Um I see our next productized approach um that we'll be launching here soon will be our terrace system. So that's really for multifamily and lodging. Um and then I do I think these shaft walls in every style of building. Yeah. So I think it's kind of that mix of like these different productized approaches, but the the big box uh elements and now that like we've had so much good precedent across Europe, across the US, across Canada, of these big box approaches to with mass timber. Um, I just see that having a huge impact because we are building so much that way right now. And um I just want to see more of it. So that's where we're really, we're really looking at um kind of focusing our efforts and focusing our support for the industry in that way. And I will say too, that continued connection to the supply chain. I'm I that that's the thing I care about a lot, especially from the job creation perspective, the economic development perspective, just making sure in every country that we're not leaving the people in behind who are building this stuff for us, right? We're not leaving the forest communities behind, we're not leaving the loggers behind, we're not leaving the truckers behind. Because this industry is very unique in how many people it can support very well, you know, not in that way where it's like, ooh, I don't know how I feel about sand mining, you know, or ore mining, like, you know, you're like, ee. That's not the same thing in wood, which again is just this really cool beauty, but it only matters if it's connected. Yeah, it only matters if if we're thinking about it that way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, because we still, and I don't know what it's like in Australia, but we our sawmills are still struggling, you know. We're still seeing a struggle with our sawmills. And I am just such a fierce advocate that US sawmills should get a piece of the pie of US mass timber. And they haven't been to the extent that they should. And it says of me saying, hey, US all the way, baby. Like, I'm not saying that. I'm saying every country should be supporting their own forests.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's just that connection piece. It doesn't mean we can't share, it doesn't mean we can't cross some borders, it doesn't mean we're not still part of a global economy. But this is a really unique product and it's a really unique industry. And it's important to remind people that these building products are one part of forestry and forest products. Yeah. Without a thriving paper market, you don't really have a thriving wood products building products market.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So without a thriving biochar market, without a thriving combined heat and power market. So it's trees support so many industries, and we have to remember that holistically and support it across the way. Otherwise, you know, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot here on what we're focused on because we're just focused on the saw log. And there's so much more to that tree that needs healthy, sustainable markets so that we can keep forests healthy, regenerating for our future generations.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so that I just I always like to make sure we're thinking about it all that way. That's where the hippie to me comes out.
SPEAKER_01:Well, going from disclosing that you're a hippie and to pushing this drug called mass timber, I'm not surprised, right? Um I'm not I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_02:All right, I love it. I love it. It's funny.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you again so much for spending the time. Um congratulations again. I hope February brings you much joy and happiness. I hope you have a great holiday season, and we will definitely see you again in the future when you come back on the podcast. And thank you for all your contributions today, and uh, we'll catch up with you soon.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.