The University of Arkansas completes its mass timber applied research facility

In Fayetteville, Ark., the University of Arkansas’s Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation, a primarily mass timber building, has reached completion. Focusing on timber design, research, and fabrication, the $38.5 million facility serves as a research and development laboratory for construction technologies and wood-centered affordable housing for the state and region.

Grafton Architects and Modus Studio Lead Mass Timber Design

Designed by Grafton Architects and Modus Studio, the four-story, 44,763-sf facility showcases locally sourced, sustainably certified timber in both education and the built environment. The center is part of the university’s Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, which is Arkansas’ only school of architecture and design.

The Anthony Timberlands Center houses classrooms, studios, seminar and conference spaces, and a flexible lecture hall and gallery space, above a double-height, 11,000-sf fabrication and design-build shop floor.

In addition to the structural frame’s engineered wood, the project used wood species such as southern yellow pine, white oak, black locust, red cedar, and bois d’arc. The project’s 1,079 cubic meters of southern yellow pine cross-laminated timber (CLT) were manufactured at Mercer Mass Timber’s Conway, Arkansas facility.

The regional sourcing of timber supports the area’s working forests, economy, and 52 local jobs, according to a statement from Mercer Mass Timber, a manufacturer of sustainable timber building materials and a subsidiary of Mercer International Inc.