The seismic performance of wood construction
The Korea Build Fair, the first, and oldest Korean Building exhibition has been one of the largest events Canada Wood Korea participated in recent years. The show attracts buyers from around the world and provides the perfect platform to showcase Canada’s quality softwood lumber and its applications in the wood construction sector.
Partnering with APA-The Engineered Wood Association and Simpson Strong Tie we delivered a technical workshop at the Korea Build Fair, designed to educate engineers and structural designers about the different wood wall bracing solutions for improved seismic performance using engineered wood products and metal connectors.
Following the ‘wake-up’ call of a 5.4-magnitude quake in 2017, the Korean government soon revised its regulation to require all new buildings two stories or higher to incorporate quake-resistant designs. The country’s efforts to increase the seismic safety of its building inventory (through changes to building codes) have generated interest in the seismic properties of wood. Our workshop brought in APA Certification Operations Manager, Goo Lee and Simpson Strong-Tie field engineer, Daniel Bartlett to dissect Korean building codes and discuss how engineered wood products and metal connectors can be specified in wood design. 65 structural design professionals participated in the workshop.
A roundtable discussion was later convened where Mr. Choi, chief architect of the city of Jinju, introduced his efforts in converting some of the most iconic projects from concrete to wood. As leading architect, Mr. Choi advises the Jinju city government on promoting more wood buildings in the municipality and is a key partner of Canada Wood Korea for some of our demonstration projects that employed mass timber and net-zero technologies.
