Thanks to a generous grant from Gensler, the College of Architecture and Design staged a successful symposium on mass timber during last September’s Detroit Month of Design. The relatively new construction material called “mass timber” was the topic of discussion and imagination during the day-and-a-half symposium that was open to students and the public. Ten architectural, design, and construction experts explored the impact of deforestation on building as well as the use and benefits of mass timber, a range of derivative wood products that are manufactured by binding or fixing the strands, particles, fibers, or veneers or boards of wood together with adhesives to form composite material.
Global architecture and design firm Gensler awarded CoAD a one-time $100,000 philanthropic donation to fund the creation and implementation of interdisciplinary undergraduate courses that equip future design professionals with the skills they need to implement viable sustainable design strategies in their professional practice.
Mass timber has since been added to the Comprehensive Design curriculum taught by Adjunct Professor Sadashiv Mallya, architectural designer, associate AIA, RA (India), LEED-AP BD+C, LF, and owner of SM Studios, Valeria De Jongh, design adjunct faculty member, and Massood Omrani, Ph.D., of the College of Business and Information Technology. In their final architectural studio, senior undergraduate students explored mass timber as a construction option along with steel and concrete for their final project. Mallya explained, “What the architect does is essentially envision and design a built form around a specific site and program that meet building codes and jurisdictional ordinances.”
In keeping with Lawrence Technological University’s motto “Theory and Practice,” “we were able to extend the Gensler grant beyond the symposium to hands-on experience for our students,” said Mallya. Commercial real estate firm Bedrock, a CoAD partner, made five live sites in their East Riverfront neighborhood available to senior studio students. “A total of 21 students formed five interdisciplinary teams comprised of three architecture students, plus a business student on each team who helped the design students understand the costs and value proposition of their architectural design and materials choices, and one team included an interior design student,” Mallya explained. Each team focused on developing a civic plus cultural, education, corporate, residential, and mixed-use facility on each of the five sites using mass timber.
“The biggest driver for incorporating mass timber,” said Mallya, “is sustainability and advanced construction methodologies, while shortening construction time compared to the traditional steel or concrete. It also has its benefits in carbon sequestering.” Carbon sequestering is the process of capturing, securing, and storing carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere to stabilize it in solid and dissolved forms so it doesn’t cause the atmosphere to warm.
By: Renée Ahee
