Arkansas's timber university building could revolutionise architecture
17 hours ago
- #mass-timber
- #architecture
- #sustainable-design
- The Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is a significant mass timber building showcasing the future of low-carbon construction.
- Designed by Grafton Architects with local firm Modus, the building serves as a workshop, studio, and auditorium for the University of Arkansas’s Fay Jones School of Architecture.
- The structure features large-scale timber components, including glulam columns and beams, supporting a five-tonne gantry crane for prototyping building elements.
- The project aims to promote Arkansas’s timber industry, though much of the wood was sourced from Austria due to local industry limitations.
- The school emphasizes hands-on learning, with students designing and fabricating furniture and exploring innovative uses of timber, such as 3D-printing with sawdust.
- Grafton Architects, known for concrete and stone designs, embraced timber for this project, blending Nordic influences with American construction practices.
- The building’s design reflects a mix of local Ozark barn aesthetics and modern engineering, though cost constraints led to a more robust structural approach than initially envisioned.
- The university hopes the center will spur regional timber innovation, leveraging Arkansas’s abundant forests and transportation infrastructure for sustainable construction.