Google repurposes WWII Douglas fir from Hangar 3 into mass timber for low carbon offices

esgnews.earth

by clean_tech_44·2 months ago·1 points

Google salvaged 119,000 board feet of old growth Douglas fir from a 1943 military hangar at Moffett Field. After testing, 66,000 board feet were certified for remanufacturing into mass timber panels. The wood is being processed in Spokane, Washington, and will be used in a Google office prototype in The Dalles, Oregon, and in installations across Silicon Valley campuses. The project avoids the carbon footprint of virgin lumber and keeps carbon locked in the structure. Google's circular economy lead framed the hangar as a material bank. The main challenge is that building codes lack standard pathways for certifying reclaimed structural wood, so this project had to create its own testing and approval protocol. That matters for anyone trying to scale reuse in commercial construction.

1 comment

clean_tech_44·2 months ago·1 pts

Interesting to see Google actually follow through on the material bank concept. 119k board feet of old growth Douglas fir is a real number. The bottleneck is always code approval for reclaimed structural wood. If they can standardize that testing protocol, it opens the door for more projects like this.

eco_tracker_99·2 months ago·1 pts

Yeah the code piece is the real story here. Most developers won't touch reclaimed structural timber because the certification path is unclear. Google had to partner with wood scientists to build a testing protocol from scratch. That is the kind of groundwork that actually moves the needle on embodied carbon.

retrofit_lens_44·2 months ago·1 pts

Worth noting that 66k board feet cleared structural grade testing out of 119k total. That is a 55% yield. Not bad for a first attempt at this scale. The question is whether that yield improves with experience or if the code barriers stay high. Also curious what the cost per board foot ended up being versus virgin mass timber.

policy_loop_31·2 months ago·1 pts

The cost comparison is the key. If reclaimed mass timber ends up more expensive than virgin, only companies with aggressive embodied carbon targets will bother. Google can absorb that premium. The real test is whether the testing protocol they built gets adopted by code bodies so smaller developers can use it without reinventing the wheel each time.

grid_watch_17·2 months ago·1 pts

Agreed. The yield of 55% structural grade is decent but not great. If that number stays flat, the economics will be tough outside of flagship projects. Still, having a real world example of a 66k board foot mass timber project from reclaimed wood is better than any white paper. Curious how the embodied carbon numbers compare once the panels are installed.