On this episode we're joined by Judith Sheine, Professor of Architecture and Director of Design of the TallWood Design Institute at the University of Oregon. She shares her work with helping mass timber become more accessible and discusses its potential to create affordable, sustainable housing. Sheine also discusses the challenges and opportunities in advancing mass timber development and what its future could look like for the Pacific Northwest and homeowners. This is part two of our conversation with Judith Sheine. You can listen to part 1 on Apple or Spotify.
Topics
- How the Mass Timber Movement Began [00:37]
- How Can Mass Timber Make Housing Affordable? [2:50]
- How the Pacific Northwest is Leading in Mass Timber [4:05]
- Overcoming Challenges in Mass Timber Development [10:48]
- What Could Mass Timber's Future Look Like? [12:29]
- Advice for Homeowners Exploring Mass Timber [16:08]
Guest
- Judith Sheine, Professor of Architecture and Director of Design of the TallWood Design Institute at the University of Oregon
Resources
- Oregon's College of Design, learn about programs in architecture, landscape architecture, product design, and more, with opportunities to develop hands-on design skills and explore sustainable approaches to shaping the built environment.
- TallWood Design Institute, discover the collaborative research institute between University of Oregon and Oregon State University dedicated to advancing mass timber and wood product building solutions through testing, applied research, and educational opportunities for students interested in sustainable building.
- Oregon Mass Timber Coalition, find out more about bout the statewide partnership between research universities and government agencies working to grow Oregon's mass timber industry and strengthen a regional ecosystem for sustainable wood product innovation.
Quotes
- "We began to look at developing a house type that could work for what are called "cottage clusters." So that would be a group of small houses around a courtyard in what had originally been zoned for a single family house. So we developed a small footprint, two bedroom, two story model that, as you said, we were able to do our first prototype in the Emmerson lab, which is at the College of Forestry at OSU, which is the home of the TallWood Institute." [3:29]
- "You know, sustainable forest management, thinning that would allow more fiber supply of small diameter logs, a revenue stream for that thinning because they could be used in mass timber and then dealing with the housing crisis by looking at the possibility of doing pre manufactured housing and factories, looking at both flat-pack, which is what we're doing, we're like the IKEA model with our little house, or volumetric, which is one of the things they'll be doing up at the port." [6:51]
- "Our TallWood Design Institute has really been recognized as the leading, mass timber research institute in the U.S., we have a number of firms are both family owned and new firms that are producing mass timber. We have research in virtually every area of it." [10:31]
- "You need a lot of stakeholders with different kinds of areas of expertise coming together in a collaborative way. And I can say what's been really interesting about the mass timber world is that it's been very collaborative, particularly here in Oregon, is that we have great relationships with industry, with government organizations, nonprofit organizations and communities all over Oregon, and that's kind of exciting in itself." [15:42]
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