Open Source Cross Laminated Timber

Instructors: Victoria Coaloa, Kim Coleman, John Dutton, Aaron Neubert, José Sanchez, John Southern, Doris Sung, Patrick Tighe

The studio is framed around the study of cross-laminated timber (CLT) as one of the most innovative building materials available in the market. CLT has received appraisal as a material that profoundly engages with ecology and sustainable practices. Timber offers “the benefit of carbon sequestration, which is the capture of carbon, usually in the form of CO2, from the atmosphere, and it’s long storage, in order to mitigate global warming” (Jones, 2019). The commitment to sustainability and ecological awareness requires us not only to use a material such as CLT but also to look into its sourcing and the foresting practices associated with it. It is through sustainable foresting management where CLT really becomes an innovative proposition for the 21st century.

The second area of interest for CLT has been its potential to drive automation and industrialized production. Companies such as Katerra have done substantial investments to develop production chains around the prefabrication of CLT modules that could define a flexible building system.

This Integrated Technology studio will study and understand why the future of the architecture industry is projected to be linked to technologies such as CLT. The studio aims to provide an industry framework with a realistic project expectation, where each part of the building could be considered an opportunity for innovation and entrepreneurial discovery. Students are invited to think of themselves as entrepreneurs that are developing a building solution that will be demonstrated in their studio project.