Mass timber is transforming the way architects think about building, and Lawrence Technological University is helping lead the change.
Our College of Architecture and Design students are exploring how this innovative composite (structural) wood can contribute to sustainable design and prepare students for the future of the profession.
“Last year, we received a $100,000 grant from the Gensler Charitable Gift Fund,” Karl Daubmann, Interim Provost, said, “to explore a relatively new but rapidly emerging building composite called mass timber.” One of the world’s largest architectural firms, Gensler identified deficiencies in the knowledge and awareness of newer building materials by recent college architectural and interior design engineering graduates. The Gensler Charitable Gift Fund awarded grants to address the deficiency to only two universities in the country, LTU and the University of Tennessee Knoxville.
LTU’s first phase of the two-semester project, the Mass Timber Symposium, kicked off the 2024 Detroit Month of Design. Open to students, architecture and engineering industry leaders, and the public, three experts explained the value and sustainability of mass timber.
According to Daubmann, leading up to the Mass Timber/Massive Cooperation Symposium on Sept 19-20, architecture students in the Integrated Design 5 (ID5) course undertook extensive research on a major mass timber project to be able to present their findings and their projects.
“ID5 was a massive collaboration across our campus with architecture, interior design, architectural engineering, and business students participating”
– Karl Daubmann, Interim Provost and Former Dean, College of Architecture and Design
Integrated Design 5 (ID5) is the fifth in a sequence of five basic architectural design courses. This course consists of coordinated lectures, labs, and studio components while focusing on the relationship between architecture and the public sphere: the varied, changing, and complex ways in which architecture influences and is influenced by people and public life. Students explore this relationship through the forces, patterns, and hierarchies that naturally define it, including matters of aesthetics, psychology, sociology, ecology, politics, and tectonics, with the aim of making sound and sustainable public design decisions.
In ID5 Fall 2024, five core student groups, each including architecture and business students, were formed and assigned one of the five building typologies: Multifamily Residential; Educational; Civic & Cultural, Industrial & Transportation; and Mixed Use. Engineering and Interior Design students conducted their own discipline-related research while serving as consultants to the core groups.
“Architects must take into consideration the engineering, interior design, and financial aspects of their projects,” Daubmann said. “Integrated Design 5 2024 studio was a massive collaboration across our campus with architecture, interior design, architectural engineering, and business students participating.”
Sadashiv Mallya, adjunct faculty in architecture, led the course with the help of Valeria de Jongh, adjunct faculty in interior design, Assistant Professor of Management Massood Omrani, PhD, MBA, and Sidney Migoski, adjunct faculty and director of architecture for Sterling Structural, a manufacturer of mass timber and other hybrid structural systems in Phoenix, IL.
The first four weeks of this course were dedicated to interdisciplinary team-based study to gain a basic understanding of mass timber, tree species (hardwood vs. softwood), and the various kits of parts that constitute the nomenclature. Kit-of-parts is a concept in the construction and building industry that refers to a system of pre-designed, standardized components or elements that can be assembled in various combinations to create different structures. Students delved into researching mass timber’s history going back to heavy timber, documenting its evolution both in Europe and North America.
As part of their typological research and case study analysis, students focused on:
The remainder of the semester was dedicated to the design of a building project in the city of Detroit. Bedrock, a leading land developer headquartered in Detroit, generously allowed LTU students to conduct further research and develop five vacant land parcels in the East Riverfront Neighborhood of Detroit. Bedrock’s Jake Chidester, Ryan Mason, and Matthew Churchwell shared valuable insights during their consulting sessions with the student groups. Each student group was assigned a specific site with a dedicated program based on current zoning, the masterplan from the City of Detroit for the East Neighborhood, and Bedrock’s vision for the overall neighborhood.
Research included a firsthand hard-hat tour of Sterling Structural’s mass timber manufacturing plant. Students observed the entire assembly of a typical CLT (cross-laminated timber) panel, from raw material being unloaded from the semis to the loading of the finished product onto the rail cars/semis to be shipped to the various job sites across the country.
One of the student teams presented the results, getting valuable feedback from Sterling Structural’s in-house architects, structural and value engineering leaders. This was a critical eye-opening experience for all the teams as it gave them boots-on-the-ground information that validated their research and prepared them to take their projects to completion.
Each team displayed their end-of-year project at CoAD’s showcase event, ShowLTU CoAD 2024.
One of the student teams will present the results of their applied research on September 13 at the AIA Michigan Design Retreat. Team members Abigail Zambeck, BSID (Bachelor of Science in Interior Design)’25, Ian Janus, BSArch (Bachelor of Science in Architecture) ’25, Jason Wegner, currently in his bachelor of architecture program, and Marshall Meyer, BSArch ’25, conceived a mixed-use facility at Rivard and Atwater Streets in Detroit.
“ID5 played a big role in teaching us the biophilic elements of architecture, meaning how architecture affects humans and how they interact with their environment,” said Zambeck, who is an interior design graduate and current Master of Architecture program student.
Janus, currently enrolled in LTU’s Master of Architecture program, said, “It’s remarkable how in-depth we really got into it. We were really pushed and challenged. LTU is one of the first mass timber studios in the country. It was one of the greatest experiences.”
I was amazed at the caliber of research, depth of understanding, and quality of the final architectural projects that the students produced during the ID5 Fall 2024
– Sadashiv Mallya, Architectural Designer, Associate AIA, RA (India), LEED-AP BD+C, LF, and adjunct professor of architecture
“I was amazed at the caliber of research, depth of understanding, and quality of the final architectural projects that the students produced during the ID5 Fall 2024,” Mallya said.
Daubmann thanked Gensler and Bedrock for “providing the funding for and the opportunity to work on real-life architectural sites. Not only are we immensely proud of each one of our students, but CoAD is committed to providing the most complete education in architectural designs and materials to prepare architects of the future to be industry-ready.”
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