Before a building welcomes its first occupant, it has accrued a huge carbon debt. Worldwide, the materials and construction required to erect buildings contribute 11% of global carbon emissions, According To the World Green Building Council.
Some places have begun to experiment with multi-story wooden buildings, and although they have recently reached new heights, wooden buildings will not replace skyscrapers any time soon. But a Chilean startup believes there’s still room for wood.
“We are more interested in hybrid buildings,” Andres Mitnik, co-founder and CEO of Strong by Form, told TechCrunch. His company has developed a new engineered wood product that can replace concrete and steel in structural floors, allowing architects to design lighter, less carbon intensive buildings. The company is a Startup Battlefield Top 20 finalist and is presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt, which is taking place this week in San Francisco.
The secret is how those floor plates are made. “We think we can shape wood in a way that no one has done before,” he said.
Strong by Form has designed a structural flooring piece that can span longer distances than existing engineered wood, making it a replacement for steel or concrete. At the same time, the product is lighter than these three.
On the outside, builders will notice something familiar. “When a contractor gets it, they see a CLT (cross-laminated lumber) slab,” Mitnick said. “All the connections, the construction system, all the processes on site are exactly the same as if you were using CLT, so there is no need to learn new things.”
But inside, instead of more solid wood, as you’ll find in CLT, the structure is full of cavities. Wood shavings are pressed into a corrugated board that is adapted to bear heavy loads.
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Corrugated panel resembles oriented strand board, or OSB, which is common on all job sites. But Strong by Form has developed software and a manufacturing technique to alter the shape and alignment of wood pieces held together by a binder such as glue. “It’s kind of the next generation OSB, if you want to think about it that way,” Mitnick said.
Using the natural form and strength of wood, Strong by Form has created wooden structural floors that currently span up to 10 meters (about 33 feet). Most CLT floors can only spread half that distance.
All that technology isn’t free, but Mitnick said the higher cost of his engineered wood product is offset by its lighter weight.
“The idea is to create something that is light enough to allow you to optimize the structure overall,” he said. Lighter floors mean less steel and concrete in the frame, reducing the overall cost of the building. “With those additional savings, we are able to achieve price parity with concrete.”
Strong by Form is testing its 10-metre panel, ensuring it meets the fire and load ratings required by structural engineers.
Next, it will raise a targeted Series A round of $10 million to build a pilot plant to produce the first pieces intended for commercial deployment.
Meanwhile, Strong by Form has also developed a panel three millimeters thick that is meant for finish rather than structural duty. The startup is working with train manufacturers to use its micro-walled panels on the interior of trains, where they can soften the aesthetic of the walls and ceilings of train cars while reducing their mass.
“This has allowed us to fund all the R&D (research and development) needed to build the floors that we really want to scale, because that’s where the impact happens,” Mitnick said.
If you want to learn more about Strong by Form from the company itself — as well as check out dozens of others, hear their pitches, and hear from guest speakers on four different stages — join us at Disrupt in San Francisco this week. Learn more here.
