We welcome tenure-track faculty at accredited architecture schools throughout the U.S. to apply for an intensive 3-day workshop geared towards equipping faculty interested in teaching Mass Timber design. 

The objectives of the workshop is to provide faculty in architecture schools throughout the country, holistic understanding about mass timber (what it is, its life-cycle components, design and engineering possibilities, benefits and challenges, industry connections, etc.) to enhance academic teaching in mass timber that is grounded in practice and facilitates creative explorations of design possibilities. The workshop is sponsored by the Softwood Lumber Board and U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities. 

As the workshop balances practice and academia, the collaboration of Leers Weinzapfel Associates Architects (LWA) and Auburn University’s Mass Timber Collaborative brings together architecture, forestry, engineering, and construction spanning both. 

LWA is an internationally recognized architecture firm with over a hundred design awards and a recipient of the national AIA’s Firm Award, the highest honor bestowed on a firm by the AIA. LWA’s two signature mass timber buildings, John W. Olver Design Building at UMass Amherst (among the first and most advanced large scale academic CLT buildings in the US and national AIA Honor Award and Education Design Award Winner) and Adohi Hall at the University of Arkansas (the largest CLT building in the US at the time of completion in 2019 and national AIA Housing Design Award Winner) are nationally recognized as pioneering examples of mass timber architecture. 

Auburn University Mass Timber Collaborative, a recipient of the 2023 USDA Wood Innovations Grant, brings together the mass timber research and education among Auburn University’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction (CADC), College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment (CFWE), and Samuel Ginn College of Engineering (SGCE). 

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