Accelerating Sustainable Building

The largest mass timber building by volume in the US is under construction in Cleveland, Ohio. Known as INTRO, it is a US$130 million mixed-use building with amenities, like a rooftop terrace, bike hangar, library lounge, and co-working spaces.

Notably, it will feature visible wood in parts of the interior. The cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued laminated timber (glulam) is supplied by Binderholz Group and sourced from certified sustainably managed Austrian forests.

INTRO is not the first large-sized US project for Binderholz. It supplied over 4,000 m³ of both CLT (tradename Binderholz CLT BBS) and glulam (tradename Binderholz glulam) for 'Adohi Hall', an award-winning 700-room student residence at the University of Arkansas completed in 2018.

Binderholz certified its products in North America in 2018 using Henkel Loctite HB X. The Henkel Loctite HB X is a formulation developed to enable CLT and glulam manufacturers meet the demanding requirements for heat and fire performance in North America.

Standards in the region require extensive fire testing and rating procedures for CLT and glulam, and charring characteristics that are like solid timber.

In the meantime, Henkel Engineered Wood has certified HB X on three continents, enabling leading manufacturers like Binderholz to address a greater range of markets and greater range of projects and building sizes, heights, and purposes.

Scaling Mass Timber Manufacturing

Binderholz has been using Henkel Engineered Wood’s one component polyurethane (1C-PUR) adhesive solutions in its CLT BBS products since 2006, citing the Henkel PUR adhesive’s sustainability and interior air quality benefits.

Indeed, Henkel Loctite 1C-PUR adhesives have zero formaldehyde and no adhesive-related Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) contributions to indoor air.

“Henkel Engineered Wood shares the Binderholz vision of a healthier environment, both in building interiors and in the earth’s atmosphere. Our collaboration with Binderholz has a positive effect on the adoption of renewable mass timber building materials and reducing CO2 emissions,” stated Christian Fild, Global Head of Henkel Engineered Wood.

Long-term Relationships

Binderholz is a family-managed company, founded in the 1950’s as a sawmill. Today it employs around 3,000 and generates annual sales of about EUR 1.5 billion. Over the years, it has steadily increased its production capacity and value-added product lines, as well growing its international presence to 14 locations in four countries, including two recently acquired sawmills in the US.

Binderholz is clearly at the advancing edge of mass timber industrialization. This is true whether looking at its new and large state-of-the-art plant for its CLT BBS products in Burgbernheim, Germany, or the sensor technology in its new TimberBrain engineering office in Hallein, Austria, or its latest building software packages.

One of the Binderholz international success factors is its ability to form long-term relationships with key local and international partners. It is not unusual to see it collaborating on multiple projects with structural engineering or architectural firms. This is also the case with the 15-year relationship between Binderholz and Henkel Engineered Wood.

“We appreciate Henkel’s long-term experience in adhesive technologies, and commitment to accelerating mass timber manufacturing. Whether we are optimizing our production lines, or innovating new products, Henkel is a reliable partner,” commented the spokesperson for Binderholz CLT BBS management team.