Dive Brief:

Construction started this week in Minneapolis on the country’s first all-timber office building.

The interior and exterior of the 220,000-square-foot, seven-story structure — known locally as T3, for the designer’s attention to timber, transit and technology — will be built with engineered wood, according to Houston developer Hines.

The architect, Vancouver-based Michael Green, is well-known in green building circles for his expertise in heavy timber construction and for his efforts to encourage others to rely on timber as a sustainable building material.

Dive Insight:

Aside from making extensive use of wood, the building is notable because it will be the tallest all-timber building in the U.S. and because the developer is building it on spec — that is, it has no tenant lined up to occupy the offices once construction wraps up.

The architect has designed the building to evoke the feel of “older brick and timber buildings” while including modern amenities and technology, Hines said in a statement.

Last month, Green unveiled plans for a 35-story skyscraper in Paris that, if built, would become the world’s most towering wood structure.