Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Market Updates - December 2025 - Week FiftyTwo
The year closed with a mix of steel in the spine and softness in the heart. We share how mass timber scaled to new heights and why living with intention matters just as much as specifying the right glulam beam. From a record free-spanning timber arch cradling Air New Zealand’s fleet to a revised, low‑carbon CLT vision for Liverpool Street Station, the momentum is real and the images are stunning. If you care about sustainable architecture, embodied carbon, and the craft of building at scale, this roundup will leave you energised.
We walk through London’s nine‑storey modular Xylo workspace and the pragmatic hybrid at the University of Arkansas, where a steel lab bar meets a warm mass timber pavilion. Charlotte’s Cordo development shows how CLT can carry homes, co‑working, and wellness spaces with biophilic ease. Then it’s north to the University of Toronto’s Mass Timber Research Centre, a landscape‑savvy campus that pairs exposed timber with climate‑responsive design, covered paths, and shared facilities that foster research, collaboration, and smarter standards. These are not one‑offs; they’re signals that timber is now a credible default in aviation, transport hubs, workplaces, universities, and housing.
Amid the project wins, we pause on health, grief, and the power of short, durable goals for 2026. Former Seahawk Michael Bennett’s Night Chapel in Seattle reminds us that structures can hold more than loads; they can hold community, memory, and a moment to breathe. We close with gratitude to long‑time supporters and to you, the listeners whose steady attention keeps this work alive. If you’re setting plans for the new year, make them clear, manageable, and meaningful—and let mass timber be part of that change.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague who loves sustainable design, and leave a quick review so more people can find these stories. Your support helps us keep bringing you thoughtful, timber‑first insights.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are alive. This is the moment you all have been a waiting on. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world today. Welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. This is Paul Kramer, your host, with the final episode for 2025 in Mass Timber Construction. And as we say goodbye to 2025, we look forward to 2026 and many more things to come. 2025 has marked some personal challenges for myself, losing a very, very close person to me, my mother. It's been a very, very difficult last six months. Please do keep yourself active and fit. Dementia is a terrible condition that uh steals loved ones from families, and it's on the increase, primarily due to hereditary concerns and lifestyle elements within our social system. It can be modified, you can make a difference. So please eat healthily, please work out, please keep your mind active. In fact, listening to this podcast, writing papers and submitting them would be a really good way to do that. And so, in honor of my mother, I just want to say thank you to everybody for all of the success over the last five years, and we look forward to what happens in the future moving forward. Let's have a look at what's making news around the world this month in mass timber construction land as we head out of 2025 into 2026. And first up, we start with my old company XLAM Australia and New Zealand, and the Southern Hemisphere's largest free-spanning timber built arch for Air New Zealand through Xlam has been unveiled in the new hangar 4 at Auckland Airport. Now, this news was reported a few months ago. However, there's some new stunning footage of the plane sitting inside the hangar. It is an impressive article. So if you want to go and have a look at some photos, not of the project itself, but completion and post-project, where the uh Air New Zealand fleet is actually inside this hangar, and you can get to see the enormity of what this structure really holds. Please head to our LinkedIn feed and have a look at it. And congratulations to the entire team at XLAM I know who worked on this job relentlessly for many years before its realization. It is a great success. Congratulations to the whole team. And an article snuck in in December with the university plans at the Port of Portland to create a new mass timber innovation campus. I don't have too many other details. It is a subscription article, and I'm not going to be subscribing. But if you do know any further details, please flick them to me. However, there's going to be a new lab as part of Port of Portland's larger plans for a mass timber innovation campus in Oregon. Look out for this space next year in 2026. We will probably report more then. An alternative vision of Liverpool Street station in London has been revealed by the King's Cross Redevelopment Team. The network rail scheme currently in the City of London is the second submission of the first application withdrawn due to the extent of the opposition opposing the particular design. So this new design now creates a space which includes low-carbon design wrapping high-quality sustainable facade with nine floors of cross-lamated timber, a lightweight material and framing, as we all know, that will be used as uh an internal system for platforms to be above this particular rail station. The artist's impressions are pretty uh compelling. If you want to go and have a look, there's two posts that show how this project will be uh drawn, and one of the concepts is John McAlson and partners who had previously worked on the previous version, and they have now revitalized this to include a 20-story office block built over the concourse, uh, and it's expected that the City of London will decide that in 2025 for 2026. Probably a bit of old news for people in the UK, but McLaren Builders has been appointed as the largest timber modular building uh developer for a nine-story Xylo scheme, which is 9,290 square meters of workspace in central London. Construction is due for completion in the second quarter of 2028, so it's a long-term project, and the contract value was not disclosed, but data provided was estimated at 57 million. The building was designed by Peri and Co. with services and sustainability engineering by Max Fordham and the civil structural engineer by Hyon Tiliot Steel. The project management will be held by uh Avizion Young, and the modular structure will be entirely of engineered timber with glue lamb beams and CLT components, and will be supplied by William Hare, subsidiary of hybrid structures. So it's a great uh project. If you want to have a look at some concept drawings, they are on the LinkedIn feed now. We look forward to looking at this project's progress over time. And there's some images of the University of Arkansas School of Pioneering embracing mass timber, the steel-framed laboratory bar hugged by mass timber pavilion, is the way the Meredith Hayes Gordon Science and Technology Market Sector leader and national architecture firm HGA described the parties for the Institute of Integrative and Innovative Research, the I3R, at the University of Arkansas. Open in 2025. This building is an impressive building, and these photos do it justice. It's great to look back on buildings that have been um completed and see how they're being functionally used. I like comparing them to the renders to see how they actually turned out. Most times renders are actually doing quite a justice for the particular project. And in December, Swinnerton also announced the topping out of uh Cordo, which is a$111 million multifamily development in Charlotte's Optimist Park and the construction of the firm's fifth collaborative space with spacecraft. Built on 1.7 acre site in Charlotte's Optimus Park community. The building stands seven floors of 1,200 square feet of street level retail steps from Cordelia Park Optimus Hall and the Lynx Line Blue Line Light Rail Access. The 325,000 square foot development features 278 studio 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units and offers premium amenities including rooftop terrace, resident lounge, game room, a full kitchen, media and co-working spaces, outdoor courtyard, and fitness and wellness areas. The building was produced with biophilic elements in mind for each resident using CLT and uh incorporating the architecture from Shook Kelly Design, which was community located at 512 East and 21st Street in Charlotte. Congratulations to Swinnerton and all the team on the project. I know you guys work extremely hard and thank you for being great supporters for the podcast over many years. The opening of the Mass Timber Research Center in the University of Toronto marks a turning point for Mass Timber in general. They are now starting to become more abundant. This new milestone is set amidst a vast natural landscape of forests, farmland, and waterways. It's designed to interact seamlessly with the terrain and natural light. Exposed timbers with eco-friendly materials reduced the carbon footprint, and large windows captured winter sunlight and provide shading in summer. Covered pathways and internal courtyards encourage movement and interaction among students and researchers in the building. With 20-sessional cabins offering comfortable accommodation during war months, shared facilities in cabins reduce water consumption, and the project provides a sustainable architectural experience in harmony with nature, making the center and the heart of the school of the research activities on the reserve. Congratulations to University of Toronto! Great images coming through, and it's great to see the projects popping up on university campuses to progress things like mass timber. Over 15 years ago, I went to Seattle and I saw a Seahawks game, and I was really pleased to read that former Seahawk Michael Bennett is now a designer and he's bringing a chapel to Seattle. Nestled into the southeastern corner of the grounds of the Seattle's Northwest African American Museum, is a small chapel built of colored timber. You might be surprised to learn that Michael Bennett, the former NFL player and Seahawks defensive lineman from 2013 to 2017, who is now a designer, has uh opened up what he calls a night chapel, a traveling structure positioned outside the NARM that explores how light structure design can coalesce in an experience rooted in community, social justice, and mental health. If you'd like to have a look at the impressive photos for this particular structure and the picture of Michael himself inside the structure, you know where to head. So that's it, folks. That's all we've got time for this week in Massima Construction Land. We'll be back next year in January with our first episode. We want to wish you a great holiday season. I hope that you have a fantastic new year. I'll be taking some time off because I just need it. Um, I hope that uh if you are with loved ones, please hug them tight. Your time is finite on this planet. I know that now more than ever before, and it puts things into perspective. So take care of one another. Please do look after each other and rejoice in reflecting on 2025. Please don't make lists for New Year's resolutions that may end in February. Think long and deep about what it is that you want to do in 2026, and make sure that that list is short but profound, and make sure it's things you can stick to. A big shout out to our sponsors of the podcast over the many many years, Rotho Blas, and in particular Peter Lang. Thank you for all of your support and belief in the podcast. Another massive thank you to a person who goes quietly about their work in industry and has been a great friend to me personally over the years, Kevin Nolan from VaporShield. And Kevin, thank you so much for your ongoing support. It's been two years that you've been tipping in a little bit of money each month uh to support the podcast, it has really kept us going. Um, also to Peter Lang, it's been three years that he's been supporting the podcast through Rotho Blast as well. But Peter also was very instrumental in the early days, so it's been five years that Rotho Blast has been involved in this podcast in some way, shape, or form, and it has really meant the difference to all of us. So thank you to all our supporters for the podcast. We really do appreciate it. Without you, we couldn't get this done. Finally, to you, the listeners, thank you so much for everything that you have done. Your listening statistics, you don't see them in the background. There are thousands of people that listen on a regular basis, and we are very proud to be able to bring you the news each week and also bring those into lewds and guest spots. Uh, sorry for the disruption in 2025, especially the last six months. It's been very difficult to produce the episodes on a weekly basis, primarily because of the personal things happening in my life. I do apologize for that. To end on a positive note, thank you so much again for everything that you have done. I hope you have a great time with your family and loved one, and we look forward to catching up with you very, very soon. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, happy new year to you all. This is Paul Kramer signing off on the Mass Timber Construction Podcast.