Tacoma Washington Wooden Wonders
Author and Photos by Talking Forests
A wooden conference you have been waiting for!
We are ready to show Portland Mass Timber conference attendees what we do. Check out some of the work Talking Forests has done. www.talkingforests.com/portfolio/
The International Mass Timber Conference is back with popular demand in Portland, Oregon this week! People from around the world including me coming from Germany are flocking to see what the latest and greatest will be in mass timber construction.
Maybe you are wanting to meet someone offline that you have worked with online?
This is the perfect chance. I sure had a case of the fear of missing out, so this year was the year to be here.
We started the day with tours of wooden buildings in Oregon and Washington State. Our tour was the third tour in my home state of Washington so I would love to dive in and tell you all a little bit more about these wooden marvels we visited.
Tacoma Brewery Blocks is a hip neighborhood and an up and coming place to live if Seattle is not affordable. No surprise here for the old buildings to get a new facelift.
The best thing about it?
They are building with recycled wood and the original structure has been seismic retrofitted to hold in a earthquake. Reclaimed wood is being used to add to the already beautiful character in this building.
What is the use of this building? Well a mix use with offices, residential and retail.
The iconic Tacoma Dome was our next stop. I have been driving by this building and have spent some good times here with family and friends, but never really put my technical hat on and thought about the wooden beams inside.
This tour gave us the chance to see the 1980’s structure with the people who engineered this marvel. Steve Turner and Paul Gilham. The modern mass timber movement has evolved since the 80’s, but we haven’t forgotten about this amazing feat of engineering and the best thing about this building is the sound quality during a concert.
We went to the Candlewood Suites Hotel being built on a military base that my husband and I just moved from and we landed in Ramstein Germany. I flew out from there to be here this week and I am so happy to have come back to see this amazing collaborative wooden hotel in person. Lendlease has been building it and it is going up fast!
Thank you to the sponsors of this tour Schmid Schrauben from Austria http://www.schrauben.at and Minimal Impact Engineering.
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