Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Market Updates - September 2025 - Week ThirtyFive
Ten years can transform a niche into a movement. We’re back with a packed update that traces mass timber’s surge from small conference rooms to global milestones, spotlighting the people, projects, and playbooks that make low‑carbon building practical. We kick off with the International Mass Timber Conference turning ten in 2026—an open call for submissions that signals how far the field has come and how much the community now drives the agenda with real‑world data and project outcomes.
Research sits at the centre of this momentum. We share a decade‑wide literature review that charts progress in fire strategy, moisture management, acoustics, and connection design—areas that once felt like barriers and now read like solvable design choices. That research energy pairs with education on the ground: the first comprehensive textbook on managing mass timber projects arrives to help builders plan procurement, sequencing, and risk with confidence, while Kew’s Saffron Learning Centre demonstrates net zero performance and Passive House targets through CLT, airtight envelopes, and simple, smart services.
Design innovation is pushing the boundaries of scale and clarity. We dig into a hybrid glulam–steel truss spanning 85 metres, optimised with parametric tools so timber takes compression and steel takes tension, with visible connection craft that teaches as it impresses. We also head to Germany for Brainergy Hub—a circular timber‑hybrid landmark and social heart of a new innovation park focused on renewable energy, bioeconomy, and digitalisation—showing how civic projects can normalise timber at scale and set the tone for a greener urban identity.
If you’re building, studying, or simply curious about where architecture and carbon accountability meet, this conversation maps the latest proof points and the next steps. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs a spark, and leave a review telling us which project or insight you want us to unpack next.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are alive. This is the moment you all have been a waiting on. Well, good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world today. Welcome to Mass Timmy Construction Podcast. I'm Kramer, your host, and I have been away for several weeks. Yes, I've been busy doing research papers, working on international grant collaborations, and trying to really get on top of everything I'm doing. So I'm sorry I've been absent from the podcast update. However, I have kept the LinkedIn feed going. So if you have been a subscriber to our LinkedIn feed for the Mass Timber Construction Journal, you will continue to get those news feeds. It's just not me commentating about things that are happening around the world. So I do apologize for that, but we're going to get right back into it and let's have a look at what's making news around the world this week in Mass Timber Construction Land. And first up, the International Mass Timber Conference in March and April next year in 2026, 31st of March to the 2nd of April 2026, is celebrating its 10 years. Yes, 2026 is 10 years since 2016, which is when the first International Mass Timber Conference occurred. And I was very lucky to be involved in those early days as a participant presenting work. I can tell you now the rooms were nowhere near as full as what they are in the current events. The explosion of mass timber over the last decade has been phenomenal. And to that point, I actually have a systematic literature review of all the papers that I could find on Mass Timber construction that is a decade in review. So if you're interested in that, there's an open access journal. I will give you the link in the show notes for this episode. You can go and have a look for yourself. But thank you to the International Mass Timber Conference for all they have done in really starting to spark a global movement of mass timber. It has been a privilege to work alongside you and the team. So get your tickets in now, register now. In fact, there's an open call for submissions for presentations. So if you're going to get in, get in quick because it is starting to come out very, very soon. They're gonna get their program sorted, and you need to get on your way. And good friend to the Mass Timber Construction Journal, Anthony Mirando, has uh published the first mass timber design called Managing Mass Timber, a guide to delivering large-scale mass timber construction projects. And uh he has been able to produce a book for the first time for a curriculum through uh Rutledge, I believe it is, and you can uh buy this book, it'll be out later this year. But if you're interested in the academic side of what's happening with Mass Timber and how that might relate to construction management, um the book will be out soon and we will promote it. But well done, Anthony! Great to see um the work that you've been doing in the US uh translating into this first comprehensive textbook for students. Into Germany now, and in uh late August, a symbolic state-of-the-art construction for Brainergy Hub, the Brainergy Park, was celebrated as laying the foundation for some uh great project in uh Westfallen in Germany. The Hens design is a striking circular timber hybrid building, was selected as the winner of the architectural competition back in 2021 and is scheduled for completion in 2027. So it's under construction now. The Brainergy Hub project is the centerpiece of a new innovation park for companies and startups dedicated to sustainable and renewable energy resource, bioeconomy, and digitalization research. And their building functions as a social knowledge hub for Brainergy Park, embodying the transition to renewable energy and a green future. The foundation of this particular building signals a new beginning for the region, the country, and future generations. You can head to our LinkedIn feed to see more of this impressive project, hoping to get some construction photos to come out of it very, very soon. And a few weeks ago, volunteers, community participants, family members, and constructors from um gardens uh and staff as well officially boat ground on the construction of Q's pioneering Saffron Learning Center. Designed to inspire and educate a diverse range of audiences. Q says the Saffron Learning Centre will ensure educational offering on both on-site and remote live streamed lessons on plant and fungal science. The Saffron Learning Centre is Q's first net zero education building, and it will be constructed to passive house standards using low-energy building design benchmarks made from CLT, which continues to lock in carbon as we all know, and chard-finished aquia weatherboard with the roofs being a main fixture of green and standing seams of harvest rainwater and flushing toilets for irrigation. The building is set to provide a precedent for echo-friendly educational spaces. If you want to have a look at the impressive drawings on this particular project that's going to be making an impact in the future, please head to our LinkedIn feed. But using parametric design software in Rhino via Grasshoffer and then RFM, uh, and then the result of this particular hybrid glue lamb steel portal frame truss was 85 meter clear span or 280 feet, and the frame takes advantage of the compression strength of the glue lamb by using it predominantly for compression top cords and struts while using steel for predominantly tension bottom cords and for the uh webs. The geometry and the frames are optimized to respect the inside height clearances to ensure inadequate roof drainage, sufficient shipping constraints, and also facilitate on-site pre-assembly. If you want to have a look at these impressive uh connection details, and I've always thought connections were a very beautiful part of mass timber buildings, these ones are on display, not hidden, and that's what makes it special. You can head to Structure Crafts Structure Crafts uh website or you can head to our LinkedIn feed. That's it, folks. That's all we've got time for this week in Mass Timber Construction Land for this episode. Returning back after my time away, having to work on some pretty intense projects in the last four weeks. I hope that you enjoy uh the next few episodes coming out. They're action-packed. There has been so much news, it's going to be very difficult to pick the right ones to um articulate on the podcast. We've got some special guests lined up coming up as well, because I know that that has dropped off as well. But thank you for sticking with us. Thanks for subscribing. Don't forget to like, comment, share, um, submit a manuscript to our academic journal. We would love to hear from you, and we look forward to catching up with you next week on the podcast. 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.