University of Massachusetts Amherst
IN-26: Innovation C

Completed in January 2017, the Design Building is the largest and most technologically advanced academic contemporary wood structure in the US. It is also the first in the US to use the wood-concrete composite floor system. The Design Building is the shared home of the Building and Construction Technology program (in the Department of Environmental Conservation), the Department of Architecture, and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. It has four floors on 87,500 GSF and cost $52 million ($36 million for construction alone), and construction time was August 2015 – January 2017. This project was supported by the MA State Legislature as a demonstration project for wood structures. At its core, the Design Building has a contemporary, heavy-timber (“mass timber”) wood structure, consisting of an exposed glulam frame (columns, beams, braces), cross-laminated timber (CLT) and concrete composite floors, and CLT shaft walls (for stairs, elevator, and mechanical shafts). It also features a three-story, folded, grand CLT stair in the atrium. he wood-concrete composite floor system uses technology that was researched right here at UMass by BCT. The 70,000 ft3 of wood used in the Design Building grew in just six minutes (considering all of N. America’s forests). They also removed (sequestered) 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere during growth, which is now permanently stored in the building. This is equivalent to taking 400 cars off the road for one year. At the upper level, the building has a roof garden, which is supported by a long-span wood-steel truss system (a “zipper” truss) that is exposed in the atrium below. sides the wood structure, this building’s other sustainability features are: LED lighting, motion sensors, ample daylighting, electro-tinting glass, bioswales, rain gardens, and more. In February 2018, the John W. Olver Design Building was been named the Jury’s Choice for Wood Innovation in the WoodWorks 2018 Wood Design Awards, which celebrate excellence in wood building design across the U.S.