Prefabrication experiments - 203 - master industrialists - 04 - Glulam timber comes to America

About one quarter the mass of reinforced concrete, a computable combustion rate and a vital carbon sink, timber’s properties argue for its use as a sustainable alternative to steel or reinforced concrete for tall buildings. As the advantages of engineered timber products are being promoted, they were first experimented with by early industrialists searching for ways to combine modern engineering principles, manufacturing potentials and material development, specifically polymers and resins. Plywood and glue laminated (glulam) structural components for building embody these advances as small pieces or sheets of continuously milled timber are glued and laminated to generate dimensionally stable units and large spanning components without the use of old growth timber. 

German master carpenter Otto Karl Freidrich Hetzer originally patented Glulam in 1901. The process of laminating timber slats into large beams efficiently uses natural resources and arranges wood fibers for structural efficiency. The small slats combined to propose large beams could be further developed as curved arches, butler frames or even to reproduce archaic systems such as the cruck frame. Shapes are a pressurized composite of standardized glue and timber lengths assembled with staggered finger-joints according to structural and aesthetic requirements.

German architect Max Hanish arrived in America in the early 1920s and designed traditional projects while promoting Hetzer’s glue laminated timber as a stronger alternative to traditional cut lumber as adhesives were quickly evolving to provide a waterproof and durable bond. Hanish received a first mandate in 1934 for a school and gymnasium project in Peshtigo, Wisconsin using glulam arches.  The Peshtigo gym’s hinged arches spanned 64 feet in plan and 24 feet in vertical section. These first experiments were relatively unfamiliar to engineers who insisted upon bolts and straps to keep the laminates together in order to get the project built. 

Hanish's production developed under the banner of Unit-Structures Inc. “Unit” is a particularly pertinent appellation as it refers to laminated timber at both the micro (small pieces) and macro (large components) scales. Unit-structures’ innovation benefited from research at the Forests Products Laboratory and a federated partnership with local boat builders Peter and Christ Thompson, owners of the Thompson Brothers Boat Company in Peshtigo to successfully develop and sanction Glulam frames in America.

Max Hanish's Glulam gymnasium in Peshtigo, Wisconsin