12 August 2024
IALCCE – Melbourne 2025
Abstract
Resilient, Carbon-Absorbing Structures
Mark Sarkisian, PE, SE, NAE, LEED
Partner – Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
Mass timber provides an excellent opportunity to incorporate a renewable resource into major structures while creating new architecture and reducing environmental impacts. For most major structures utilizing steel or concrete it takes 20 years for operational carbon emitted to overcome the carbon emissions created at the time of construction. Therefore, considerations for embodied carbon at the time of construction is essential. Through research and creative implementation, timber has become an excellent alternative to more tradition construction materials where carbon is absorbed not just reduced.
Research for the use of timber in tall buildings will be discussed through the work in developing concepts for the Timber Tower along with specific built examples of implementing the material into buildings. Advantages of including other materials into mass timber structures will also be discussed. Finally, aspirations of structures that sequester carbon as well as those that can be used in areas of high seismicity will also be discussed. The paper and presentation will include major project examples designed by SOM.
Biography
Mark Sarkisian, PE, SE, NAE, LEED BD+C, is a Partner of Structural and Seismic Engineering at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in San Francisco, California. He received his BS Degree in Civil Engineering from University of Connecticut where he is a Fellow of the Academy of Distinguished Engineers and his MS Degree in Structural Engineering from Lehigh University. He also received an honorary Sc.D degree from Clarkson University and an honorary MS degree from the Politecnico di Milano. In 2021, he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in the United States. His career has focused on developing innovative structural engineering solutions for over 100 major building projects around the world, including some of the world’s tallest. Mark holds 15 U.S. and international patents for high-performance seismic structural mechanisms and environmentally responsible structural systems. He teaches studio design courses at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly, California College of the Arts, North Carolina State University, Northeastern University, and the Pratt Institute and has the written the book entitled “Designing Tall Buildings – Structure as Architecture” with the second edition recently released by Routledge -Taylor & Francis.