At Westend in Denver, an urban garden-style apartment complex, glulam supplied by Direct Lumber and Door helped resolve a design challenge: creating the cantilevers and bumpouts that were essential to the varied exterior façade. “Nobody wants a plain box anymore,” says Leo Brown, vice president of Carmel Partners and CP Construction. “The more ins and outs there are, the happier renters are, but the harder it is to frame. The glulam beams helped us meet those needs.”
The use of glulam beams elsewhere in that project, including headers over windows, doors, and garage doors, also brought monetary savings over other options. The beams’ 3-1/2″ and 5-1/2″ widths matched stud dimensions; alternatives would have required tripling up—and therefore additional money and labor.
“It’s a value-engineering opportunity. You can save the owners money by value-engineering it using glulams,” says Tom Kostelecky, president of Direct Lumber and Door, who says he often has to educate builder customers on the availability and value proposition of the material. “They’re often less expensive to purchase, and customers can get full sizes instead of nailing smaller sizes together to carry the load, so it saves them labor too.”
More and more, wood framing is viewed as a system rather than a sum of parts, and wood systems are stretching to new heights. In mid-rise mixed-use construction, architects are replacing the typical concrete “podium” (two to five stories of wood framing over a concrete, nonresidential first story) with a wood podium. Using a wood podium reduces overall construction costs and time and results in a more sustainable, less massive building.
As multifamily continues to dominate the construction landscape, wood framing is an increasingly critical, reliable structural solution. For dealers in areas where the market is booming, educating customers on performance and efficiency opportunities can help them reach new heights and solve critical design challenges.
Visit www.apawood.org/glulam, for more insights on selling glulam beams.