Tall Timber Model Code Proposals Closer to Adoption

The International Code Council has announced that the 14 tall mass timber code change proposals unofficially passed the ballot for inclusion in the 2021 International Building Code. The voting results will not be final until early next year after the validation process is complete, according to the ICC, which publishes the IBC.

The primary tall timber proposal, called G108, and the 13 other related proposals would create three new types of construction (Types IV-A, IV-B and IV-C), set fire safety requirements and allowable heights, areas and number of stories for taller mass-timber buildings than are currently allowed in the model code. The provisions would allow mass-timber framing in residential and office buildings as tall as 270 ft.

On Oct. 24, at the ICC's final action hearings in Richmond, code officials voted 220 to 103 to increase the height limits for mass timber buildings, according to Mike Pfeiffer, ICC's senior vice president of technical services.

The ICC's online voting followed for two weeks beginning in mid-November. Still to come is validation by the technical activities committee, which will review both the proposals and an outside audit of the online voting, and then report to the ICC standards board. The board has the final say.

Nadine M. Post, ENR's editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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