AIA Buffalo/WNY COTE is excited to host this outstanding panel of experts on April 3rd: details and registration link are below.
Tipping the Scales on Mass Timber – An Expert Panel Discussion
Date/Time: Thursday, April 3rd, 2025, 11:30AM – 1:30PM via Zoom
Cost: Free
CEU's: Submitted for 2.0 LU's
Register: Tipping the Scales on Mass Timber - An Expert Panel Discussion - AIA Buffalo/WNY
This course will discuss the challenges and successes of designing and building in an exciting experimental material – mass timber. Mass timber describes a category of composite materials that are derived from timber and strengthened to give them greater structural capabilities to build taller than timber frame construction normally allows. Mass timber is also a strategy to limit the carbon footprint of building activities. There are also biophilic benefits to living with wood rather than industrial materials such as glass, steel, and concrete. Mass timber is dominated by cross-laminated timber panels (CLT) and glue-laminated timber beams (glulam). The last decade has been a long road for its advocates, manufacturers and architects, but has seen impressive successes such as its inclusion in the International Building Code in 2021 (for buildings up to 18 stories or 270 feet) and more and more completed buildings around the country. This webinar will tell the story of the transformation of this innovative material into a medium for architectural expression.
Barbara A. Campagna, FAIA will serve as the moderator. Barbara is an architect, planner, and historian – reinventing and restoring historic and existing buildings. She is the recipient of the National AIA Young Architect of the Year Award 2002 and was elevated to Fellowship in the AIA in 2009 as "the leading national architect and policymaker for the integration of preservation values into green building practices." Barbara has completed the restorations of some of the most significant National Historic Landmarks in the country and is a recognized leader in the sustainable preservation of historic buildings. She ran her own architecture firm for many years in New York City, served as the Regional Preservation Officer for the Northwest Region of the General Services Administration and from 2006-2011 was the Chief Architect for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Her current firm, BAC/Architecture + Planning, based in Buffalo, has integrated all of her work as a private architect, non-profit administrator and government preservation officer for the past 13 years. <u1:p></u1:p><u1:p> </u1:p>
William Richards is the author of Against the Grain: Mass Timber in the Home (2024), Revolt and Reform in Architecture's Academy: Urban Renewal, Race, and the Rise of Design in the Public Interest (2017), Bamboo Contemporary: Green Houses Around the Globe (2022), and Together by Design: The Art and Architecture of Communal Living (2022). His writing on the business, culture, and practice of architecture, cities, and design has appeared in Architect Magazine, The Architect's Newspaper, Architectural Record, Art New England, Future Anterior, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and other publications. Bill is the co-founder and editorial director of Team Three, an editorial and creative consultancy, based in Washington, D.C. and Paris, and he holds a Ph.D. in art and architectural history from the University of Virginia.<u1:p></u1:p>
Susan Jones, FAIA, is founder of Seattle-based architectural firm, atelierjones. Her award-winning, all-woman owned and woman-led firm drives new lower-carbon pathways within architecture and construction at scale and is a national leader in mass timber design. She published one of the first books on Mass Timber in 2017 – Mass Timber: Design and Research. A third-generation citizen of the Pacific Northwest, Susan grew up in Bellingham, Washington, and has raised her family in Seattle. Susan earned her B.A from Stanford in Philosophy, and her M.Arch from the Harvard GSD. She was awarded the AIASeattle Gold Medal and the Architectural Record Women in Architecture Award in 2024 and is a Fellow of the AIA. She lives in a mass timber home that she designed and has designed many mass timber buildings. <u1:p></u1:p><u1:p> </u1:p>
Merritt Bucholz, MRIAI, Director of Bucholz McEvoy Architects, co-founded the practice in Dublin 1996 with Karen McEvoy, and in 2005 founded the School of Architecture at the University of Limerick (SAUL) where he now heads the School of Architecture and Product Design. Bucholz McEvoy Architects create durable and climate-resilient architecture that is inherently oriented to enhancing human experience. Carefully crafted, site specific, optimizing natural daylight & ventilation, their architecture is fine tuned to its use and its particular micro-climate. The firm's ethos is based on collaborative practice, embedding concepts of energy reduction, based on a careful analysis of use of space, and well-researched construction technology for each step of design process, enablers in developing truly sustainable, beautiful, and resilient designs. See their recently opened, mass timber TRCA Headquarters in Toronto featured in February's Architectural Record.
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Roxanne Button AIA
Design Synergies Architecture P.C.
Buffalo NY
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