Tall Wood and Hybrid Buildings with Innovative Structural Concepts

Tall wood and hybrid buildings have been emerging as the latest additions to skylines in increasing number of cities in North America, Europe, East Asia, and Australasia. There are also a significant number of older wood buildings that are currently in the process of being retrofitted to current standards to prolong their service lives. To meet the challenges associated with the new and existing structures, attempts have been made to apply some innovative ideas developed for similar structures with other materials. This paper describes three such initiative: tubular structure for a tall timber-concrete hybrid building, design of outrigger-belt truss system for a tall building structure with timber, concrete, and steel combined and articulation of energy dissipating mechanisms for retrofit of soft-story wood buildings in seismic regions. The tubular structure is a virtual alternative to the 24-story high current tallest wood building. The outrigger-belt truss system is for a 20-storied wood building with two alternatives for the core: concrete and steel braced frame. The soft-story wood structure represents thousands of similar buildings in Western United States. Details of the analyses and designs are presented with results from numerical analysis.