Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Market Updates - September 2025 - Week ThirtySix
Want a clear view of where mass timber is winning right now? We walk through five fresh stories that tie speed, carbon, and human-centred design into one practical playbook—then cap it with a new moisture management guide that raises the quality bar for everyone building with wood.
We start with Heathrow’s Eastern Business Park, where logistics pressures demand fast delivery and minimal disruption. Prefabricated roof panels arrive with solar arrays integrated, steel frames are pre-assembled and reassembled on site, and cross-laminated timber sections drop into place with precision. It’s a case study in how digital planning and factory-first workflows translate into fewer site hours and better energy performance from day one.
From there, we head to Oregon’s La Plaza Esperanza, a mass timber community hub designed by ZGF that offsets roughly 80% of its energy use with solar. The exposed structure, sloped roof, and light-filled rooms support a bilingual preschool, youth programmes, and a flexible hall for celebrations—proof that CLT can carry beauty, comfort, and equity in the same envelope. We also spotlight Matt’s Place 2.0 in Spokane, an ALS-friendly smart home that pairs CLT and modular construction with voice-activated controls for doors, lighting, and security, protecting dignity as mobility declines. Then it’s over to Gdańsk, where the Fahrenheit student housing complex uses CLT for sustainable, adaptable dorms that balance privacy, daylight, and social spaces—an honest answer to modern student needs.
Threading through every segment is the importance of water tightness and durability. The Danish Technological Institute’s new moisture management guide—supported by Built by Nature—offers practical strategies, role clarity, monitoring plans, and checklists that teams can adopt from design through operations. If you’re serious about mass timber, this is the handbook that keeps performance on track and risk under control.
If these stories sparked ideas, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review—your feedback helps more builders, designers, and clients find the path to better timber projects.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are alive. This is the moment you all have been a waiting on the hallway.
SPEAKER_00:Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world today. Welcome to Mass Timber Construction Podcast. I'm Paul Kramer, your host. Don't forget the International Mass Timber Conference coming up in March 31st to April 2nd in 2026, celebrating 10 years, taking abstracts or submissions for presentations now. So please get your uh input in so that you potentially can become a presenter in this monumental 10-year celebration. Also, don't forget to hit the registration button, get your registration in. Also, book your accommodation at Airfares now. I cannot stress how much it has changed in recent years. There is a real need to have your accommodation uh booked well in advance, otherwise, you will be in very remote places to be able to get to the convention center in Oregon. So don't miss out. Anyway, on to more mass timber news from around the world. And Heat Throw Airport has begun a significant redevelopment in its eastern business part, transforming a 1.6 hectare site into a new logistics facility designed to support the airport's growing international and business needs. Nearly all the building components will be prefabricated from 16-meter continuous roof panels fitted with solar arrays to cross-limited timber roof sections cut precisely to the lengths before delivery. Even the steel frames will be pre-assembled in the factory, dismantled for transport, and then quickly erected in the site, speeding up the installation process because the site has a requirement for speed of construction, and this is one of the ways that prefabrication, including things like mass timber, can support a build where there is an urgent need to get assembly of a structures pretty quickly. So if you want to have a look at the latest details, you can go to the Heathrow Airport uh business uh Eastern Business Park transformation website, or you can head to our LinkedIn feed. And the Latino Network, an Oregon non-profit, opens an 18,000 square foot mass timber community center designed by ZGF Architects. La Plaza Esperanza also features a solar array designed to offset the building's annual energy use by about 80%. Uh, the place is called a place of hope. The community center is called a place of hope, includes an office space, bilingual preschool, youth programs, and a multi-purpose room for community celebrations, events, meetings, festivals, etc. The project selected mass timber for the structure as a carbon-friendly, cost-effective solution material compared to steel and dimensional lumber. In addition to the building's sloped mass timber roof and exposed wood structure, there's a nod to the surrounding Pacific Northwest Forestry. It's an impressive building. If you want to have a look at the photos, please either head to the um Latino Network website or head to our LinkedIn feed. And just down the road a little bit to Spokane and Spokane House Design for people living with ALS has won a prestigious national award called Matt's Place 2.0. The project meets unique needs while also being a showcase for CLT construction, modular design, and smart home technology, according to the American Institute of Architects, which honored it for its sustainable housing design. The Seattle Architecture from Miller Hull Partnership was funded by two graduates from Washington State University architecture program. Vargain Timbers was involved in it. Well done to the guys at Vargan, which supplied the CLT to use in the project, and general contractor was Abaka Constructions and Development. The view of the kitchen, the dining room, the living space inside Matt's place, and smart home features allow people with ALS to control the lights, security systems, and doors using voice activation because ALS impacts the capacity to use your movement, your hands, your your limbs, etc. And so this building caters specifically for that. Congratulations to everyone on the MATS 2, uh Matz Place 2 project, and uh yeah, we'd love to see further developments in this space where we can use Mass Timber to support people who have additional needs in society. And the project that's headed up by Gdance University of Technology, located in Gdants uh district uh center, has um combined ecological solutions with functionality and comfort for residents in a brand new uh facility that is dormitories called Fahrenheit. The dormitory complex was designed in accordance with the modern requirements that take into account both technology and social aspects for the construction project, and of course, it used mass timber, specifically CLT technology, to uh ensure the sustainability of the building and ensure that the space was designed with the convenience of the end users in mind, making the project a response to modern challenges for student housing. Impressive photos, they are in black and white, they actually look really good in black and white. Um, if you'd like to see more, head to our LinkedIn feed. And very important in this modern day and age of using mass timber, there is a new moisture management guide to support quality in timber construction. The Danish Technology Institute has support been supported by Built by Nature and launched a new practical guide to moisture management designed to help ensure high quality standards for future timber projects. Their experience shows that clear moisture strategies, well-defined roles, and ongoing monitoring are essential for maintaining quality in timber projects, with a new guide and industry gains created through practical tools and applications to inform decision making about moisture management and apply real-world applications, is the function of this guide. The guide provides the background information, examples of various moisture strategies and checklists that you can use. Together with these resources, the project teams developed a tailored moisture management solution implementing systematic moisture control through construction and building operations. So we know moisture management through the assembly, we also know it in the production, we also know it through to finished um compliance, and then you've got ongoing moisture management control uh monitoring required or observations and checks. And so this guide is very comprehensive. So if you want to check it out, obviously head to uh the build-in-wood community page. You can go to built by nature or you can go to the Danish Technology Institute and search for the moisture management guide to support quality in timber construction. And that's it, folks. That's all we've got time for this week in Mass Timber Construction Land. We hope that you have an amazing week. Thanks for checking in, liking, subscribing, uh, sharing, commenting on our posts. Don't forget to submit a manuscript to our academic journal if you have a research project, and we look forward to catching up with you very, very soon with more news from around the world. 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.