Business View Magazine | April 2020

67 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 MAXXON CORPORAT ION for guidance on fire and sound performance on a mass timber project. We recognized this as an emerging construction trend that fit into our wheelhouse and decided to learn more.” Continual research, an important priority at Maxxon, is under the purview of Erik Holmgreen, the company’s VP of Research & Development. “An important part of what my group is trying to do is to expand off our 50-year history of experienced applicators. We want to be looking for new products that complement what they do.” Maxxon Corporation uses feedback from their applicator network and industry partnerships to inform what the market is looking for and what trends are growing. In the mass timber space, Maxxon first partnered with SmartLam, a manufacturer of cross-laminated timber, to exchange a basic understanding of mass timber construction and sound control in buildings. That led to the first round of sound testing and every year since then Maxxon has invested in testing to better understand and predict how sound behaves in mass timber structures. In 2018, the International Building Code adopted several code changes specifically addressing the use of mass timber to build above 85’ high. For very tall mass timber buildings, fire code is achieved through full gypsum encapsulation, i.e. drywall on walls and ceilings and gypsum underlayments on the floor. In 2019, Maxxon teamed up with Woodworks, a non-profit that promotes the use of wood in construction, and Worthington Armstrong Venture (WAVE), a leading manufacturer of suspended ceiling systems, to design code compliant floor/ceiling assemblies. The most recent test program was informed by and developed around commonly requested design objectives including price, performance, speed and the ability to showcase an exposed ceiling. Maxxon and WAVE were able to design floor ceiling assemblies to meet these goals. The testing program generated a substantial amount of data, lending to a high degree of confidence in the performance of each