Scheduled to open later this month, a new retail and office building in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, will not only be the first mass timber building in the city but will be the first multi-story office building in the U.S. constructed with dowel-laminated timber, the Des Moines Register reported. The unique, all-wood product that works without nails or other fasteners is pressed together using dowels, according to Canadian structural engineering firm and supplier StructureCraft. General contractor Ryan Cos. installed the “friction-fit” prefabricated 8-foot-by-20-foot DowelLam panels, which serve as floors and roof, within a spruce glulam beam-and-column frame, according to Neumann Monson Architects. The mass timber system also allowed for quicker construction time, in conjunction with the precast concrete walls and buttresses used as an anchor at the south end of the building that make up the service core READ HERE
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