Timber Construction: The Latest Architecture and News

Tippet Rise Art Center has announced the commissioning of architect Francis Kéré to design a 1,900-square-foot pavilion for the center’s 10,000-acre grounds in Montana, USA. Envisioned as a “communal gathering space nestled among a cluster of aspen and cottonwood trees,” new renderings by Kéré Architecture depict the scheme featuring a locally-sourced log canopy.

The scheme can be read as an evolution of Kéré’s canopy structures designed for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen, and his 2017 Serpentine Pavilion in London.

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As their entry in a competition for The Arbour, a new academic building for the campus of George Brown College on Toronto’s Lake Ontario waterfront, Montreal-based firm Provencher_Roy have revealed their design for an adaptable mass timber building that could grow and change in time.

Using a staggered truss structural system that divides the building into modular cells measuring 8.4 meters tall, 17.4 meters wide and 40 meters long, the firm explains that the stacked program elements can be reorganized as necessary, with classrooms and double-height auditorium spaces able to be converted to basketball courts or column-free open offices by adjusting the cross-laminated timber flooring, which can be adjusted without compromising the rest of the structure.

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A collaboration between Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects have been announced as the winner of the competition for a new timber building in Toronto. Their proposal beat out several other notable firms including Shigeru Ban, who is known for his timber constructions, Patkau Architects who worked with MJMA, and Provencher_Roy who partnered with Turner Fleisher. The winning design scheme, called The Arbour, will be a net-zero tower to house a new school of computer technology as part of an expansion at George Brown College.

Recently shortlisted for the 2018 Design Challenge "Design the Next-Generation Facade" by Metals in Construction Magazine, this "Pixel Facade" system is an adaptive, scalable and repeatable building system that can be applied to various building typologies. The system draws inspiration from our innate desire for nature, also known as "biophilia." The "Pixel Facade" system merges a contemporary office environment with biophilic environments to create the next generation of office design.

Digital technology has broken into the timber construction scene at ETH Zurich, where a research team is using programmed robots to construct load-bearing timber modules. These modules are being used to stabilize the top two levels of their DFAB HOUSE project, a three-story residential unit located in Dübendorf, which aims to bring a variety of digital construction methods together under one roof.

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Foster + Partners has released details of their proposed chapel to form part of the Vatican’s inaugural entry to the Venice Biennale. The Holy See Pavilion will comprise ten chapels designed by ten architects, to be situated on the Venetian Island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Among the architects contributing to the circuit of chapels are Foster + Partners, Eduardo Souto de Mourao, and Francesco Cellini.

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“Plyscraper,” “woodscraper,” call it what you will, but the timber age is upon us. Brock Commons Tallwood House, the recently completed student residence building at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, now occupies a prominent position within architecture: the tallest building with a timber structure in the world.

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The key to engineering wood strong enough to support skyscrapers may lie in the interaction between molecules 10,000 times narrower than the width of a human hair.

A new study by researchers at the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge has solved a long-held mystery of how key polymers in plant cells bind to form strong, indigestible materials such as wood and straw. By recreating this ‘glue’ in a lab, engineers may be able to produce new wood-based materials that surpass current strength capabilities.

The municipality of Amsterdam has selected Team V Architectuur with Lingotto, Nicole Maarsen and ARUP to design HAUT, a 73 meter (240 foot) residential tower located along the Amstel River that will become the Netherlands' tallest timber framed building and, depending on construction schedules, is a contender for the title of tallest wooden tower in the world. With construction expected to begin in the second half of 2017, HAUT is another example of the growing timber architecture trend hitting tall building design.

Construction is underway in Vancouver for the world’s tallest timber tower by Acton Ostry Architects. The 18-story Brock Commons Student Residence at the University of British Columbia, which began construction in November 2015, will be completed in the summer of 2017. At 53 meters tall, with housing for 404 students, it will be the tallest mass wood hybrid building in the world. The structure’s two freestanding concrete cores will be completed by the end of May, after which, the erection of the mass wood structure will take place.

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Jean-Paul Viguier et Associés, in partnership with Eiffage and Woodeum, have won the competition for a 57 meter timber tower in the Saint-Jean Belcier district of Bordeaux, France. A tower and two shorter buildings, the 17,000 square meter mixed-use project contains housing, offices, and retail space, and is part of a larger master plan intent on spurring development in the vicinity of the Bordeaux-Saint-Jean railway station. The project name “Hyperion” is a reference to the world’s tallest living tree (a Sequoia sempervirens in Northern California) and emphasizes the proposal’s vanguard use of timber materials.

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UPDATE: Submissions are now closed. We will contact the winner in the week.

Next month, the annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo is coming to the Big Easy for three days of speakers and educational workshops that discuss sustainable architecture. If you haven’t booked your ticket already, here is a chance to attend the event free of charge!

reThink Wood is offering a full pre-paid pass to Greenbuild this year ($700 value) to one lucky ArchDaily reader. The winner will also be able to meet with architects on-site that are passionate about the green movement and reducing the environmental impact of buildings through innovative design with wood.

To win, just answer the following question in the comments section before September 26 12:00PM EST: "Which architecture firm(s) are doing the most innovative green designs with wood today?"

Next month, the AIA National Convention is coming to Chicago – bringing together the best and brightest building professionals to network, and learn about growing trends in the architecture industry. If you haven’t booked your ticket already, here is a chance to attend the event free of charge!

reThink Wood is offering a full pre-paid pass to the AIA National Convention ($945 value) to one lucky ArchDaily reader. The winner will also be able to meet with architects on site that are passionate about innovative design with wood in mid-rise, and even high-rise projects.

To win, just answer the following question in the comments section before May 21 12:00PM EST: What architect(s) are doing the most interesting work with wood today?

More on reThink Wood at the AIA, after the break.