Wood has been perhaps the most common material for buildings for millennia, but innovations in its application are bringing new opportunities and advantages for working with this sustainable material. Structural applications of mass timber are proliferating in types and scales. Factory assembly of wood components can produce stronger elements in designed architectural shapes.

To find out more about the characteristics and benefits of new uses of wood for infrastructure, we talk with Eric Long, Structural Engineering Partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in San Francisco, who leads the firm’s West Coast Structural Engineering practice.