Archinect - News

Oregon researchers build prototype mass timber home that ‘fits together like gingerbread house’

2024-11-07T11:13:00-05:00

A research team in Oregon has unveiled a mass timber prototype home that seeks to showcase a sustainable, energy-efficient alternative to traditional home construction. Designed by the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration between the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, the 760-square-foot project was unveiled at an open house event on November 7th.

Image courtesy of the University of Oregon

The home, built from locally sourced mass plywood panels produced by Freres Engineered Wood, aims to address key issues such as affordable housing shortages, wildfire resilience, and economic sustainability. Unlike conventional timber construction, the home is constructed of mass plywood panels shaped to fit together like pieces of a gingerbread house, the team says.

Image courtesy of the University of Oregon

Through the project, the team imagines a future where a home could arrive in a flatpack ...

University of Oregon's College of Design awarded more than $16 million in federal funds to bolster timber application in construction

2022-09-19T15:14:00-04:00

The University of Oregon has been awarded more than $16 million in federal funds as part of a grant to the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition from the Build Back Better Regional Challenge.

A total of $41.4 million was awarded to the coalition by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. $24.6 million is heading to the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration between Oregon State University and the University of Oregon that aims to advance mass timber construction and other wood product building approaches. Oregon State University will receive $8 million.

Previously on Archinect: Mass timber, clean energy, biotech, and Indigenous communities are among the biggest winners of the $1 Billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge

At the University of Oregon, the funds will be split between two programs in the College of Design, with $14.6 million going toward the Oregon Acoustic Research Laboratory and $2 million for an affordable housing prototype using mass tim...

Michael Green Architecture, Oregon State University debut mass timber innovation lab

2019-10-14T19:55:00-04:00

Oregon State University (OSU) has opened a new 17,500-square-foot research and fabrication lab designed by Michael Green Architecture (MGA) dedicated to mass timber design, engineering, fabrication, and construction.

The A.A. "Red" Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory, as the space is known, brings together university and industry partners that include OSU's colleges of forestry and engineering and the University of Oregon's College of Design to create the TallWood Institute. The lab is the cornerstone of a new Oregon Forest Science complex on OSU's Corvallis campus, also designed by MGA. The interdisciplinary partnership, according to OSU's website, will focus on the "advancement of structural wood products and mass timber design in constructing high-rise and other multistory buildings."

Exterior view of the A.A. "red" Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Lab. Image courtesy of TallWood Institute.

In a press release announcing the opening of the complex, TallWood Design Institute ...