Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Market Updates - July 2025 - Week TwentySix
Five years strong! The Mass Timber Construction Podcast celebrates this milestone by exploring the most exciting developments transforming the built environment through sustainable wood technologies.
The adaptive reuse revolution continues with London's New Wave House by Thomas McBriden Architects. This thoughtful vertical expansion features a glulam timber pavilion atop an existing industrial building, preserving architectural character while creating nearly 800 square meters of flexible workspace for local businesses. The project exemplifies the craftsmanship-centered approach possible with mass timber, with components manufactured in the contractor's own joinery workshop.
Mass timber's versatility shines in specialized applications, notably at Washington School for the Deaf. This groundbreaking facility incorporates DeafSpace principles with CLT elements designed specifically for visual communication needs. Eight-foot-wide corridors allow for sign language conversations while walking, and horseshoe-configured classrooms provide double the standard space per learner, demonstrating how engineered wood can support inclusive, community-focused design.
Corporate America continues its timber transformation with Walmart's new Bentonville headquarters emerging as the nation's largest mass timber corporate campus. At 83,380 square meters across four hybrid buildings, it joins Google and other major corporations embracing sustainable construction at scale. Meanwhile, manufacturing capacity grows with Klasnikov's new 100,000 square foot prefabrication facility in British Columbia—itself built from the company's own mass timber products.
The academic world advances timber innovation too, with MSU's Sandra Lupien securing a prestigious Fulbright Award to conduct mass timber policy research in Finland during 2025-2026. Her work represents the growing global collaboration driving the future of sustainable construction.
Want to contribute to this exciting field? Submit your research to our international journal—free to publish, free to access, and offering extensive exposure across our podcast and social media platforms. Subscribe, share, and join us in building a more sustainable future through mass timber innovation!
Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. This is the moment you all have been waiting for. It's time for the global sensation, the one, the only, the undisputed heavyweight podcast in the world the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. And now here's Paul Cramer, your host. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world today. Welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. This is Paul Cramer, your host. Welcome to the month of July. It's great to have you on board. Thank you for subscribing, liking, commenting, sharing, and thank you to bruce buffer, the veteran voice of not only the octagon but also the podcast, for doing the introduction for five years now we have been going for five years. It's a monumental effort.
Speaker 1:Let's have a look at what's making news around the world this week in mass timber construction land and new wave house by thomas mcbriden architects is a glulam timber pavilion that's been added to an existing industrial building as part of a sensitive adaptive reuse project. We have images of this impressive additional or vertical extension on top of this industrial building on our linkedin feed. The New Wave House is a sensitive adaptive reuse vertical expansion of a specialist contractor named New Wave in London. They achieved a two-story structure including a lightweight glulam timber pavilion and its load-bearing perimeter walls, maximizing potential of the development while preserving the character and the fabric of the original building. In addition to the accommodating the contractor's growing spatial requirements, 785 square meters of flexible workspace across nine rentable units has been created for local businesses and startups, addressing a critical need within the local community. The project was delivered through a close architect-contractor relationship. Components were manufactured in New Wave's London-owned joinery workshop, placing craftsmanship at the heart of the build. And, as I said, you can go and have a look at this impressive photo on our LinkedIn feed.
Speaker 1:And heading to the United States now, in the washington school for the deaf, the wsb divine academic and hunter gymnasium stands as a landmark achievement in accessible education design, incorporating deaf space principles to prioritize the unique needs of deaf and hard of hearing students. The project, delivered through a progressively designed build approach by Skanska, leveraged early collaboration with DeafSpace consultants to create spaces specifically engineered for deaf communication and learning. The warm, home-like environment fosters a sense of belonging and pride for students and staff. The key building innovations include eight foot wide hallways allowing for sign language conversions while walking and classroom, providing approximately 60 feet of space per learner Twice the industrial standard, arranged in a horseshoe configuration that maximizes visual communication. The building was produced using CLT elements and if you want to have a look at the photos, you can head to our LinkedIn feed. An amazing story. Great to see mass timber being used in acute areas such as the deaf school that we've just spoken about, plus aged care facilities. Great to see that we're trying to think about whole community when we're developing these projects.
Speaker 1:And probably a little bit of older news, but Sandra Lupien, who'd been on the podcast a few years ago, who's an academic specialist and serves as the director of timber mass timber at MSU, michigan State University, has received a Fulbright US Scholar Program Award to conduct a professional, product-focused mass timber policy for the 2025-2026 academic year in Finland as part of the US Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Congratulations to Sandra. She's seeking solutions for global challenges through this particular scholarship and we look forward to hearing what happens. And, sandra, please do come back from Finland with your new policy and we'd love to have you on the podcast again and have a chat about what's been happening all around your journey with the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if we did report this at the time, but Klasnikov's mass timber facility recently opened with a 100,000 square foot mass timber prefabrication and modular facility in BC, 400 miles east of Vancouver. The new facility, which is built entirely out of Klasnikov's own mass timber products, complements the company's two other nearby facilities. Mass Timber Products complements the company's two other nearby facilities. If you want to see some images of this impressive timber produced, magnificent warehouse construction manufacturing plant, please head to our LinkedIn feed. And I know we announced the Google Mass Timber Buildings previously, and I know that we've announced Walmart mass timber buildings previously and I know that we've announced Walmart. Well, walmart's new home in Bentonville, arkansas, is the largest mass timber corporate campus in the United States. From Mercer, mass Timber manufactured the sustainable material zone one, four hybrid mass timber buildings, four stories each totaling 83,380 square meters, and office spaces and parking decks. And if you want to have a look at some construction photos, there's a couple on our LinkedIn feed. These are impressive juggernaut buildings and you can see the superstructure going up using the Lugulam and CLT plate system and it's impressive. So please do head to our LinkedIn feed and check those out.
Speaker 1:That's it, folks. That's all we've got time for this week in Mass Timber Construction Land. We hope you have a great week moving forward. Good morning, good afternoon. Before we go, don't forget to hit subscribe. If you've got a journal manuscript and you want to get it into an international journal for publication, please put it into a review. We review very, very quickly. We are free to access, free to publish, we will not charge fees and you will have a great exposure across our many platforms, including the podcast and social media. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Today, this is Paul Kramer signing off on the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. Thank you,