From forest to frame, here’s how we’re shaping the future with mass timber.

ZGF Architects

Our practice connects communities and is committed to the stewardship of place, people, and the environment.

Published Jun 18, 2024

Mass timber has been a mainstay of ZGF’s portfolio for decades. Call it a benefit of our roots in Oregon that we’ve carried forward to each of our seven offices across North America. Today, our mass timber projects increasingly stretch across global geographies and into typologies previously considered unfeasible for mass timber—from laboratories and sports facilities to airports and hospitals.

Mass timber’s warmth and beauty as a biophilic material, meaningful carbon savings, and construction efficiencies mean it meets head-on many of the biggest challenges facing the built environment in the 21st century. From the Portland International Airport to the Mercat del Peix Research Center in Barcelona and our latest projects and thought leadership highlighted below, ZGF’s design explorations push the edges of mass timber as an impactful building material suitable for a multitude of applications.

Follow us on LinkedIn for more project highlights and reach out with questions on our mass timber work at masstimber@zgf.com.

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Just a few years ago, using mass timber in a laboratory environment seemed impossible. Now, it's the future of research facilities. The Jen-Hsun Huang and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex at Oregon State University is the first all mass-timber experimental research laboratory in the U.S.

The Future of Labs is Mass Timber | ZGF

Every piece of wood in the Portland International Airport main terminal expansion was sourced from landowners and mills within a 300-mile radius. This unprecedented approach to supply chain transparency is a new paradigm for tracing wood, its ecological impact, and community benefits.

Cultivating a Replicable and Transparent Wood Supply Chain at PDX Airport | ZGF