Why we should build wooden skyscrapers
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0:01 - 0:04This is my grandfather.
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0:04 - 0:06And this is my son.
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0:07 - 0:09My grandfather taught me to work with wood
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0:09 - 0:10when I was a little boy,
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0:10 - 0:12and he also taught me the idea that
-
0:12 - 0:15if you cut down a tree
to turn it into something, -
0:15 - 0:18honor that tree's life
and make it as beautiful -
0:18 - 0:20as you possibly can.
-
0:20 - 0:23My little boy reminded me
-
0:23 - 0:26that for all the technology
and all the toys in the world, -
0:26 - 0:28sometimes just a small block of wood,
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0:28 - 0:30if you stack it up tall,
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0:30 - 0:34actually is an incredibly inspiring thing.
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0:34 - 0:36These are my buildings.
-
0:36 - 0:38I build all around the world
-
0:38 - 0:41out of our office
in Vancouver and New York. -
0:41 - 0:44And we build buildings
of different sizes and styles -
0:44 - 0:46and different materials,
depending on where we are. -
0:46 - 0:48But wood is the material
that I love the most, -
0:48 - 0:50and I'm going to tell you
the story about wood. -
0:50 - 0:52And part of the reason
I love it is that every time -
0:52 - 0:54people go into my buildings that are wood,
-
0:54 - 0:57I notice they react
completely differently. -
0:57 - 0:59I've never seen anybody walk
into one of my buildings -
0:59 - 1:02and hug a steel or a concrete column,
-
1:02 - 1:05but I've actually seen
that happen in a wood building. -
1:05 - 1:07I've actually seen
how people touch the wood, -
1:07 - 1:09and I think there's a reason for it.
-
1:09 - 1:12Just like snowflakes,
no two pieces of wood -
1:12 - 1:14can ever be the same anywhere on Earth.
-
1:14 - 1:16That's a wonderful thing.
-
1:16 - 1:19I like to think that wood
-
1:19 - 1:22gives Mother Nature
fingerprints in our buildings. -
1:22 - 1:24It's Mother
Nature's fingerprints that make -
1:25 - 1:29our buildings connect us to nature
in the built environment. -
1:29 - 1:31Now, I live in Vancouver, near a forest
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1:31 - 1:34that grows to 33 stories tall.
-
1:34 - 1:37Down the coast here
in California, the redwood forest -
1:37 - 1:40grows to 40 stories tall.
-
1:40 - 1:43But the buildings
that we think about in wood -
1:43 - 1:46are only four stories tall
in most places on Earth. -
1:46 - 1:49Even building codes actually limit
the ability for us to build -
1:49 - 1:52much taller than four
stories in many places, -
1:52 - 1:54and that's true here in the United States.
-
1:54 - 1:56Now there are exceptions,
-
1:56 - 1:57but there needs to be some exceptions,
-
1:57 - 1:59and things are going
to change, I'm hoping. -
1:59 - 2:01And the reason I think that way is that
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2:01 - 2:04today half of us live in cities,
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2:04 - 2:08and that number is going
to grow to 75 percent. -
2:08 - 2:10Cities and density mean that our buildings
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2:10 - 2:12are going to continue to be big,
-
2:12 - 2:16and I think there's a role
for wood to play in cities. -
2:16 - 2:19And I feel that way
because three billion people -
2:19 - 2:22in the world today,
over the next 20 years, -
2:22 - 2:24will need a new home.
-
2:24 - 2:26That's 40 percent of the world
that are going to need -
2:26 - 2:29a new building built for them
in the next 20 years. -
2:29 - 2:32Now, one in three people
living in cities today -
2:32 - 2:34actually live in a slum.
-
2:34 - 2:37That's one billion people
in the world live in slums. -
2:37 - 2:41A hundred million people
in the world are homeless. -
2:41 - 2:44The scale of the challenge for architects
-
2:44 - 2:46and for society to deal with in building
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2:46 - 2:51is to find a solution
to house these people. -
2:51 - 2:54But the challenge is,
as we move to cities, -
2:54 - 2:57cities are built in these two materials,
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2:57 - 3:00steel and concrete,
and they're great materials. -
3:00 - 3:02They're the materials of the last century.
-
3:02 - 3:05But they're also materials
with very high energy -
3:05 - 3:09and very high greenhouse gas
emissions in their process. -
3:09 - 3:12Steel represents about three percent
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3:12 - 3:14of man's greenhouse gas emissions,
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3:14 - 3:17and concrete is over five percent.
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3:17 - 3:19So if you think about that, eight percent
-
3:19 - 3:23of our contribution
to greenhouse gases today -
3:23 - 3:26comes from those two materials alone.
-
3:26 - 3:28We don't think about it
a lot, and unfortunately, -
3:28 - 3:31we actually don't even think
about buildings, I think, -
3:31 - 3:32as much as we should.
-
3:32 - 3:36This is a U.S. statistic
about the impact of greenhouse gases. -
3:36 - 3:39Almost half of our greenhouse gases
are related to the building industry, -
3:39 - 3:41and if we look at energy,
it's the same story. -
3:41 - 3:44You'll notice that transportation's sort
of second down that list, -
3:44 - 3:47but that's the conversation
we mostly hear about. -
3:47 - 3:51And although a lot
of that is about energy, -
3:51 - 3:53it's also so much about carbon.
-
3:53 - 3:56The problem I see is that, ultimately,
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3:56 - 3:59the clash of how we solve that problem
-
3:59 - 4:02of serving those three billion people
that need a home, -
4:02 - 4:05and climate change,
are a head-on collision -
4:05 - 4:08about to happen, or already happening.
-
4:08 - 4:11That challenge means that we have
to start thinking in new ways, -
4:11 - 4:14and I think wood is going
to be part of that solution, -
4:14 - 4:15and I'm going to tell
you the story of why. -
4:15 - 4:18As an architect, wood
is the only material, -
4:18 - 4:20big material, that I can build with
-
4:20 - 4:23that's already grown
by the power of the sun. -
4:23 - 4:27When a tree grows in the forest
and gives off oxygen -
4:27 - 4:29and soaks up carbon dioxide,
-
4:29 - 4:32and it dies and it falls
to the forest floor, -
4:32 - 4:36it gives that carbon dioxide back
to the atmosphere or into the ground. -
4:36 - 4:39If it burns in a forest fire,
it's going to give that carbon -
4:39 - 4:42back to the atmosphere as well.
-
4:42 - 4:45But if you take that wood
and you put it into a building -
4:45 - 4:48or into a piece of furniture
or into that wooden toy, -
4:48 - 4:50it actually has an amazing capacity
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4:50 - 4:54to store the carbon and provide
us with a sequestration. -
4:54 - 4:57One cubic meter of wood will store
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4:57 - 5:00one tonne of carbon dioxide.
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5:00 - 5:02Now our two solutions
to climate are obviously -
5:02 - 5:05to reduce our emissions and find storage.
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5:05 - 5:07Wood is the only major
material building material -
5:07 - 5:11I can build with that actually
does both those two things. -
5:11 - 5:14So I believe that we have
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5:14 - 5:16an ethic that the Earth grows our food,
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5:16 - 5:19and we need to move
to an ethic in this century -
5:19 - 5:21that the Earth should grow our homes.
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5:21 - 5:23Now, how are we going to do that
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5:23 - 5:24when we're urbanizing at this rate
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5:24 - 5:27and we think about wood
buildings only at four stories? -
5:27 - 5:29We need to reduce the concrete
and steel and we need -
5:29 - 5:31to grow bigger,
and what we've been working on -
5:31 - 5:36is 30-story tall buildings made of wood.
-
5:36 - 5:39We've been engineering
them with an engineer -
5:39 - 5:42named Eric Karsh who works with me on it,
-
5:42 - 5:44and we've been doing this new work because
-
5:44 - 5:47there are new wood products
out there for us to use, -
5:47 - 5:49and we call them mass timber panels.
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5:49 - 5:51These are panels made with young trees,
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5:51 - 5:55small growth trees, small pieces of wood
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5:55 - 5:57glued together to make
panels that are enormous: -
5:57 - 6:02eight feet wide, 64 feet long,
and of various thicknesses. -
6:02 - 6:05The way I describe this
best, I've found, is to say -
6:05 - 6:07that we're all used
to two-by-four construction -
6:07 - 6:08when we think about wood.
-
6:08 - 6:10That's what people jump
to as a conclusion. -
6:10 - 6:12Two-by-four construction
is sort of like the little -
6:12 - 6:15eight-dot bricks of Lego
that we all played with as kids, -
6:15 - 6:18and you can make all kinds
of cool things out of Lego -
6:18 - 6:21at that size, and out of two-by-fours.
-
6:21 - 6:22But do remember when you were a kid,
-
6:22 - 6:24and you kind of sifted
through the pile in your basement, -
6:25 - 6:27and you found that big
24-dot brick of Lego, -
6:27 - 6:27and you were kind of like,
-
6:27 - 6:30"Cool, this is awesome. I can
build something really big, -
6:30 - 6:31and this is going to be great."
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6:31 - 6:33That's the change.
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6:33 - 6:35Mass timber panels
are those 24-dot bricks. -
6:36 - 6:37They're changing the scale
of what we can do, -
6:37 - 6:40and what we've developed
is something we call FFTT, -
6:40 - 6:42which is a Creative Commons solution
-
6:42 - 6:47to building a very flexible system
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6:47 - 6:50of building with these large
panels where we tilt up -
6:50 - 6:54six stories at a time if we want to.
-
6:54 - 6:57This animation shows you
how the building goes together -
6:57 - 7:01in a very simple way, but these
buildings are available -
7:01 - 7:03for architects and engineers
now to build on -
7:03 - 7:05for different cultures in the world,
-
7:05 - 7:08different architectural
styles and characters. -
7:08 - 7:10In order for us to build safely,
-
7:10 - 7:13we've engineered these
buildings, actually, -
7:13 - 7:14to work in a Vancouver context,
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7:14 - 7:16where we're a high seismic zone,
-
7:16 - 7:19even at 30 stories tall.
-
7:19 - 7:21Now obviously, every time I bring this up,
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7:21 - 7:23people even, you know, here
at the conference, say, -
7:23 - 7:26"Are you serious? Thirty stories?
How's that going to happen?" -
7:26 - 7:29And there's a lot of really
good questions that are asked -
7:29 - 7:31and important questions
that we spent quite a long time -
7:31 - 7:33working on the answers
to as we put together -
7:33 - 7:36our report and the peer reviewed report.
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7:36 - 7:38I'm just going to focus on a few of them,
-
7:38 - 7:39and let's start with fire,
because I think fire -
7:39 - 7:42is probably the first one that you're
all thinking about right now. -
7:42 - 7:43Fair enough.
-
7:43 - 7:45And the way I describe it is this.
-
7:45 - 7:47If I asked you to take
a match and light it -
7:47 - 7:51and hold up a log and try
to get that log to go on fire, -
7:51 - 7:53it doesn't happen, right?
We all know that. -
7:53 - 7:55But to build a fire, you kind
of start with small pieces -
7:55 - 7:57of wood and you work your way up,
-
7:57 - 8:00and eventually you can
add the log to the fire, -
8:00 - 8:02and when you do add the log
to the fire, of course, -
8:02 - 8:05it burns, but it burns slowly.
-
8:05 - 8:07Well, mass timber panels,
these new products -
8:07 - 8:09that we're using, are much like the log.
-
8:09 - 8:12It's hard to start them
on fire, and when they do, -
8:12 - 8:14they actually burn
extraordinarily predictably, -
8:14 - 8:17and we can use fire science
in order to predict -
8:17 - 8:19and make these buildings
as safe as concrete -
8:19 - 8:21and as safe as steel.
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8:21 - 8:24The next big issue, deforestation.
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8:24 - 8:27Eighteen percent of our contribution
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8:27 - 8:29to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide
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8:29 - 8:30is the result of deforestation.
-
8:30 - 8:34The last thing we want
to do is cut down trees. -
8:34 - 8:38Or, the last thing we want to do
is cut down the wrong trees. -
8:38 - 8:41There are models for sustainable forestry
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8:41 - 8:43that allow us to cut trees properly,
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8:43 - 8:45and those are the only trees appropriate
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8:45 - 8:47to use for these kinds of systems.
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8:47 - 8:49Now I actually think that these ideas
-
8:49 - 8:52will change the economics
of deforestation. -
8:52 - 8:54In countries with deforestation issues,
-
8:54 - 8:57we need to find a way to provide
-
8:57 - 8:59better value for the forest
-
8:59 - 9:02and actually encourage
people to make money -
9:02 - 9:04through very fast growth cycles --
-
9:04 - 9:0710-, 12-, 15-year-old trees
that make these products -
9:07 - 9:09and allow us to build at this scale.
-
9:09 - 9:11We've calculated a 20-story building:
-
9:11 - 9:14We'll grow enough wood in North
America every 13 minutes. -
9:14 - 9:17That's how much it takes.
-
9:17 - 9:20The carbon story here
is a really good one. -
9:20 - 9:23If we built a 20-story building
out of cement and concrete, -
9:23 - 9:26the process would result
in the manufacturing -
9:26 - 9:30of that cement and 1,200
tonnes of carbon dioxide. -
9:30 - 9:32If we did it in wood, in this solution,
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9:32 - 9:34we'd sequester about 3,100 tonnes,
-
9:34 - 9:37for a net difference of 4,300 tonnes.
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9:37 - 9:39That's the equivalent of about 900 cars
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9:39 - 9:42removed from the road in one year.
-
9:42 - 9:44Think back to that three billion people
-
9:44 - 9:45that need a new home,
-
9:45 - 9:48and maybe this
is a contributor to reducing. -
9:48 - 9:51We're at the beginning
of a revolution, I hope, -
9:51 - 9:53in the way we build, because this
is the first new way -
9:54 - 9:58to build a skyscraper
in probably 100 years or more. -
9:58 - 10:00But the challenge is changing
society's perception -
10:00 - 10:02of possibility, and it's a huge challenge.
-
10:02 - 10:06The engineering is, truthfully,
the easy part of this. -
10:06 - 10:08And the way I describe it is this.
-
10:08 - 10:10The first skyscraper, technically --
-
10:10 - 10:13and the definition of a skyscraper is 10
stories tall, believe it or not — -
10:13 - 10:15but the first skyscraper
was this one in Chicago, -
10:15 - 10:18and people were terrified to walk
underneath this building. -
10:18 - 10:20But only four years after it was built,
-
10:20 - 10:23Gustave Eiffel was building
the Eiffel Tower, -
10:23 - 10:24and as he built the Eiffel Tower,
-
10:24 - 10:29he changed the skylines
of the cities of the world, -
10:29 - 10:32changed and created a competition
-
10:32 - 10:34between places like New
York City and Chicago, -
10:34 - 10:37where developers started building
bigger and bigger buildings -
10:37 - 10:40and pushing the envelope
up higher and higher -
10:40 - 10:42with better and better engineering.
-
10:42 - 10:44We built this model in New York, actually,
-
10:44 - 10:47as a theoretical model on the campus
-
10:47 - 10:50of a technical university soon to come,
-
10:50 - 10:51and the reason we picked this site
-
10:51 - 10:54to just show you what these
buildings may look like, -
10:54 - 10:56because the exterior can change.
-
10:56 - 10:59It's really just the structure
that we're talking about. -
10:59 - 11:02The reason we picked it is because this
is a technical university, -
11:02 - 11:04and I believe that wood is the most
-
11:04 - 11:07technologically advanced
material I can build with. -
11:07 - 11:10It just happens to be that Mother
Nature holds the patent, -
11:10 - 11:13and we don't really feel
comfortable with it. -
11:13 - 11:15But that's the way it should be,
-
11:15 - 11:18nature's fingerprints
in the built environment. -
11:18 - 11:20I'm looking for this opportunity
-
11:20 - 11:24to create an Eiffel Tower
moment, we call it. -
11:24 - 11:26Buildings are starting
to go up around the world. -
11:26 - 11:27There's a building in London
that's nine stories, -
11:27 - 11:30a new building that just
finished in Australia -
11:30 - 11:32that I believe is 10 or 11.
-
11:32 - 11:35We're starting to push the height
up of these wood buildings, -
11:35 - 11:37and we're hoping, and I'm hoping,
-
11:37 - 11:40that my hometown of Vancouver
actually potentially -
11:40 - 11:43announces the world's tallest
at around 20 stories -
11:43 - 11:46in the not-so-distant future.
-
11:46 - 11:48That Eiffel Tower moment
will break the ceiling, -
11:48 - 11:50these arbitrary ceilings of height,
-
11:50 - 11:53and allow wood buildings
to join the competition. -
11:53 - 11:55And I believe the race is ultimately on.
-
11:55 - 11:56Thank you.
-
11:56 - 12:01(Applause)
- Title:
- Why we should build wooden skyscrapers
- Speaker:
- Michael Green
- Description:
-
Building a skyscraper? Forget about steel and concrete, says architect Michael Green, and build it out of … wood. As he details in this intriguing talk, it's not only possible to build safe wooden structures up to 30 stories tall (and, he hopes, higher), it's necessary.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 12:22
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for Why we should build wooden skyscrapers |