Mid-Rise Wood Design: Light-Frame and Mass Timber Strategies

Mid-rise wood construction offers designers multiple pathways to create code-compliant, efficient buildings using light-frame and mass timber systems. This course compares these approaches and examines how construction type, occupancy, building height and area, and project goals influence system selection. For light-frame buildings, discussion focuses on maximizing the allowable building size using strategies such as sprinklers, open frontage, sloping sites, podiums, and mezzanines. For mass timber buildings, the course highlights the impact of construction type selection and other early design decisions such as grid layout, fire-resistance ratings, and lateral systems. Built examples will illustrate how these decisions can support safe, efficient, and cost-effective mid-rise design.

Speaker:

Mark Bartlett, PE | WoodWorks

Mark joined the WoodWorks team in 2017. Before joining WoodWorks, he spent 11 years as a consulting engineer, eight years as a field engineer with Simpson Strong-Tie, and six years in business development for an engineering firm. His structural engineering project experience includes retail, hospitality, education, aviation, theaters, renovations of existing structures, and post-installed anchorage to concrete. Mark received his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with an emphasis in structures from Lehigh University and has worked as a structural engineer in many capacities. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the states of Texas and Oklahoma.

Credits: Attendees can earn 1.5 AIA/CES HSW LU, 1.5 PDH credits or 0.15 ICC credits

Online Attendees:

• WoodWorks will send each attendee a certificate of completion within 2 weeks via email.
• Please note that to receive a certificate, attendees must stay for the duration of the event.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify different wood systems that can be used for mid-rise construction and how construction type, occupancy, height, and area influence the selection of a safe and code-compliant wood structural system.
• Apply code provisions for construction type, allowable height and area, sprinklers, open frontage, sloping sites, podiums, and mezzanines to maximize the potential of light-frame wood construction while maintaining required life-safety protections.
• Evaluate key mass timber design considerations including structural grid, fire-resistance ratings, and lateral-force-resisting systems and their influence on structural performance, fire safety, and occupant welfare.
• Review built projects to understand how code provisions and early design decisions can be integrated to achieve safe, efficient, and cost-effective mid-rise buildings.

For questions or additional information, please contact:

Mary Schramka | mary.schramka@woodworks.org | 708.204.9578

Image: Carbon12 / Kaiser+Path / photo Andrew Pogue