Skanska last week announced continued progress on a planned 12-story mass-timber office tower in downtown Bellevue — a height that would make it among the tallest mass-timber offices in the country and one of the most significant commercial mass-timber office developments in the commercial-real-estate industry, the global construction and development firm said in a news release.
The project, named Bevel, remains in the architectural design and entitlement phase with the city of Bellevue, according to the release. Skanska, Mithun + Waugh Thistleton, which is a collaboration between Seattle-based Mithun and London-based engineered-timber specialists Waugh Thistleton Architects, and other project partners continue to advance plans for what the release called one of the most innovative and sustainable office developments in the Pacific Northwest.
According to the website for WoodWorks, a nonprofit that assists project teams in designing and constructing successful wood buildings, “Mass timber refers to a category of framing styles characterized by the use of large, engineered wood panels, often paired with engineered wood columns, and beams. Panels are most frequently used in horizontal applications for floors and roofs, but can also be used vertically for walls. It is common to use mass timber in combination with other building systems to achieve benefits greater than those offered by each system alone. Examples include mass timber floors and roof with light-frame wood walls, steel elements in long-span floor systems, and concrete foundations, podiums, cores, and floor toppings.”…