What The 2027 SDPWS Means For Wood In The Toughest Regions
Jackson Morrill
President & CEO of the American Wood Council
awc.org
In a hurricane corridor or along a fault line, material choice often comes down to one question from the engineer of record: can this system handle the lateral loads, and can I prove it to the building official? For wood, the answer lives in AWC’s Special Design Provisions for Wind and Seismic (SDPWS). When that document expands, so does the list of projects where wood earns its place.
The 2027 edition of SDPWS does just that; it expands the options for wood construction in high wind and seismic zones with performance-based provisions. Now an American National Standard and set for reference in the 2027 I-Codes, the new SDPWS responds directly to the projects designers are bringing forward, from mass timber buildings to light-frame homes.
For example, in a cross laminated timber (CLT) building, floors and roofs act as diaphragms. They collect wind and seismic forces and deliver them to the walls below. As CLT projects grow and move into more demanding regions, engineers need design procedures built on how systems using full-size CLT panels actually perform. The 2027 edition revises the CLT diaphragm provisions using results from recent testing. This same research behind the SDPWS updates is now shaping proposed seismic design force reduction factors for CLT diaphragms in ASCE 7-28, the load standard that governs nearly every structural design in the country.
The new Post-Tensioned Timber Rocking Wall offers another option. These walls are designed to rock at their base during an earthquake and return to plumb, with tendons pulling them back into place. For building owners, that means a system with demonstrated seismic performance and a stronger resilience story to tell.
Light-frame construction gets another option as well. In high-wind and high-seismic zones, reaching required shear capacity has often meant sheathing both sides of a wall. The new High-Capacity One-Sided Shear Wall system gets there with sheathing on a single side. That means simpler framing and fewer steps on the jobsite, with the same proven performance.
Each of these changes was tested and debated through AWC’s ANSI-approved standards development procedure following consensus-based review, where engineers, code officials, and other stakeholders weighed in before anything became final.
For lumber, sheathing, CLT, and glulam manufacturers, standards like SDPWS work as market infrastructure. A standard doesn’t create demand on its own. But without one, demand in the most challenging regions can’t be met with wood. Every new system in SDPWS is another path for wood products into projects that might otherwise default to steel or concrete.
The 2027 SDPWS is available to view online now, with a downloadable PDF to follow.
