Tours

Stop #1 | Portland’s First Living Building

Location: Portland, Oregon
Scale: 58,000 SF mixed-use building
Completion: 2022

Photo © Benjamin Benschneider

The PAE Living Building is designed to meet the world’s most rigorous sustainability standards. The five-story, 58,000 SF mixed-use building, located in Portland’s historic Old Town / Skidmore district, is the first developer-driven and largest commercial urban Living Building in the world. The building utilizes Pacific Northwest cross-laminated timber and glulam beams.

Created in 2006, the Living Building Challenge (LBC) is the most stringent green building certification process that exists today. Project teams must meet seven key performance areas – known as Petals – that address every aspect of design, construction, and operations to achieve a resilient and self-sufficient building.

The PAE Living Building is designed to last 500 years. The approach marries the scale and feel of a historic neighborhood with the highest possible energy performance and sustainability standards necessary for the future. The building uses less energy, water, and material than comparable buildings while delivering superior levels of occupant comfort and productivity. Critically, the PAE Living Building demonstrates how the built environment can achieve the deep and immediate carbon emission reductions required to mitigate the most severe impacts of climate change. It shows the world what a regenerative future can look like while providing the roadmap for how to get there.

Project Team

Developer | Edlen & Co.
Architect | ZGF Architects
Contractor | Walsh Construction Co.
MEP Engineers and Technology Design | PAE
Lighting Design | Luma
Structural and Civil Engineer | KPFF
Real Estate Partner | Apex Real Estate Partners
Landowner | Downtown Development Group
Red List Materials Research | Brightworks Sustainability
Water Treatment (Rainwater and Composting) | Biohabitats
Mass Timber Manufacturer | Structurlam

View this building on the WoodWorks Innovation Network

Stop #2 | Timberlab Fabrication Facility

Location: Portland, Oregon
Completion: 2021

Photo © Timberlab

Back by popular demand, we’re revisiting the Timberlab fabrication facility to see firsthand how Timberlab continues to innovate in the North American market. Officially opened in 2021, Timberlab endeavors to do something never before done on each project.

On this tour, visitors will witness Timberlab’s fabrication capabilities by seeing a demonstration of their state-of-the-art, large-format beam saws. Guests will also learn more about the BIM for fabrication required by the Virtual Design and Construction team in setting up projects for fabrication. Timberlab is a mass timber fabricator for the new Portland International Airport Terminal and its 9-acre mass timber roof. Learn more from Timberlab about their role on this incredible build, considered one of the world’s most complex construction projects.

Timberlab is excited to showcase our facility as an essential part of the developing mass timber market. Comprised of in-house experts, Timberlab makes projects pencil through coordination and mastery of the mass timber supply chain. The team is excited to see mass timber grow in new markets, and is committed to advancing mass timber’s adoption in the United States commercial construction market for the benefit of the people and the planet.

Stop #3 | Thesis HQ

Location: Portland, Oregon
Status: Under construction

Image © LEVER Architecture

Located at the corner of NW Savier and NW 24th, the Forest Park Post Office site is an exciting and charged collision of multiple distinct city fabrics. Thurman to the north and NW 23rd to the east bring the fast-paced, social, and urban energy of commerce while Wallace Park and the single-family bungalows to the southwest provide the tight-knit, humble, community focus that Portland is so well known for. To the West, Forest Park inspires a healthy ecosystem of connected experiences that can provide a new urban campus model. Drawing from these distinct user experiences, the new Thesis campus proposes a workspace with a strong indoor-outdoor connection and commitment to humane spaces for real people.

The 40,000 sf mass timber headquarters provides a warm and tactile material palette in conjunction with a connective design strategy that produces spaces that are inspirational yet accessible. Project features include a large plaza, rooftop terrace, and ground floor all hands space with terraced seating for speakers and presentations. The project is targeting LEED Gold with rigorous energy use reduction strategies and on-site renewables including a 54.6 kw solar array. All while providing ample access to the outdoors with large operable openings on all levels opening the office users to views of Forest Park.

During stop at this site, visitors will appreciate the regionally sourced glulam post & beam and CLT structure that was fabricated 10 minutes away at Timberlab in support of just-in-time delivery for a tight, urban site with an expedited project delivery schedule.

Project Team

Developer | Thesis, PHK Development
Architect | LEVER
Contractor | Swinerton
Structural Engineer | Holmes Structures
MEP Engineers and Technology Design | Interface Engineering
Lighting Design | Biella Lighting Design
Exterior Envelope Consultant | Morrison Hershfield
Civil Engineer | Vega
Landscape Architect | Lango Hansen
Code Consultant | Code Unlimited
Sustainability Consultant | Project Pivot
Mass Timber Fabricator | Timberlab
Mass Timber Manufacturers | Kalesnikoff (cross-laminated timber), Zip-O-Laminators (glulam)

Stop #1 | Hayward Field, University of Oregon

Location: Eugene, Oregon
Completion: 2020

Photo © Kevin Scott

Hayward Field is a world-class facility fully dedicated to track and field with seating for 12,500 spectators. The facility regularly hosts marquee events like the Olympic Trials and World Athletics Championships. The label “a true theater for track” is well earned.

Showcasing the history of Oregon’s wood culture, the wood for the stadium roof used 462 Douglas fir glulams created into 77 unique curves. The project has already won a number of architectural awards.

The tour will include a stop at Hayward Hall, an interactive museum and its 9-storey tower that offers an outstanding view of the stadium and surrounding area.

The design, construction and manufacturing teams will all be on site to describe how it was put together from start to finish.

Project Team

Owner/Developer | University of Oregon
Architect | SRG Partnership
Contractor | Hoffman Construction Company
Civil Engineer | Mazzetti
Structural Engineer | MKA
Mass Timber Manufacturer | Western Archrib
Architectural Coating Manufacturer | Sansin Corporation

Stop #2 | Farmer’s Market Pavilion

Location: Eugene, Oregon
Scale: 8,500 SF Pavilion
Completion: 2022

Photo © Eric Brown | FFA Architecture & Interiors

The Farmers Market Pavilion and Plaza, located in downtown Eugene’s Park Blocks, is the multi-function community space and permanent home for the Lane County Farmers Market. In visioning sessions with market representatives and city leaders, the design team was tasked with representing the agricultural character of the market’s vendors and products in a manner refined for an urban setting. The team researched various characteristics of farms and farming, settling on the simplicity and transparency of greenhouses. The resulting project is a simple form that is open and transparent allowing the activity inside to be the primary focus.

The Pavilion is constructed from a mass timber system of glulam columns and beams with cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. The CLT panels represent an efficient use of sustainably harvested small-diameter trees. These panels were fabricated from Oregon-grown Douglas fir by DR Johnson Wood Innovations in Riddle, Oregon, and demonstrate a shift in building construction practices towards a more carbon-neutral future. The expressed structure, chosen for its ecology, economy, and human connection glows through the polycarbonate at night, adding a warmth to the rest of the Eugene Park Blocks.

At this stop visitors will be able to eat their lunch at the pavilion and experience how mass timber can work in public projects. Take note of the glulam beams spanning a clear 50 feet, and CLT shearwalls strategically placed at the support space ‘core’ of the pavilion. Architects from the project will be available to share the story and answer questions about the planning and design process that helped to make this project a success for the city and its main tenant.

Project Team

Owner | City of Eugene, Lane County Farmers Market
Architect | FFA Architecture and Interiors
Structural Engineer | KPFF
Owner’s Representative | SOJ
Contractor | Lease Crutcher Lewis
Mass Timber | DR Johnson Wood Innovations
MEP Engineers | PAE Consulting Engineers
Civil Engineering | Mazzetti
Landscape Architecture | Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture & Planning
Acoustics | Acoustic Design Studio
Lighting Design | HLB

View this building on the WoodWorks Innovation Network

Stop #3 | Zip-O-Laminators Manufacturing Facility

Location: Eugene, Oregon

Photo © Tom Waddell | Forest Business Network

Zip-O-Laminators is a division of Zip-O-Log Mills, a custom cutting sawmill founded in 1944 by the Hallstrom family. Zip-O-Laminators began production in 2016 and is a custom glulam plant. You can expect glulam in all shapes and sizes, most typically up to 115 feet long and 111 inches deep, and curves every which way. The statement said continuously at its facility is… “operating between the improbable and the impossible.” The sky is the limit at Zip-O-Laminators — constantly striving for perfection from customer service to quality product and on-time shipments.

Zip-O-Laminators was tapped to be one of the primary manufacturers of the glulam beams used in the Portland, Oregon, airport’s new 9-acre mass timber roof. The PDX roof incorporates over 2,000 glulam beams, including 272 single-span glulams reaching a massive 80 feet in length. Zip-O-Laminators built 182 beams with arches reaching nearly 16 feet high, a size never before done with glulam of this shape as a single piece.