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."

In a press release announcing the opening of the complex, TallWood Design Institute director Iain Macdonald said, "The institute has close links with Oregon’s manufacturing community and we are proud to have worked with both of the state’s mass timber producers, DR Johnson and Freres Lumber, during their product development efforts,” adding, “We have also been able to conduct structural, fire, acoustic and durability testing for many of the mass timber building projects that have taken shape around Oregon and beyond.”

According to the news announcement, the opening of the center featured live demonstrations of the facility's robotic milling machines as well as a special appearance by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley. Merkley, one of the chief backers of the Green New Deal framework, remarked that the center represents "a foundation for an extraordinary future for products that are sustainable, for new and different designs, so we can take Oregon trees and ship these engineered products all around the world to further strengthen Oregon’s economy.”

According to a TallWood Institute website, the facility, which is itself made out of mass timber panels and large-span timber structural elements, includes a 25-foot-tall structural testing bay that can be used to build three-story mock-ups of mass timber assemblies as well as a second bay that features CNC panel processing equipment, a CNC press, and a 5-axis CnC robot.