Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Market Updates - July 2025 - Week TwentySeven
Exciting developments are taking shape across the global mass timber landscape, with remarkable projects making headlines from Toronto to Oakland, Massachusetts to Colorado. The University of Toronto's academic tower has reached an impressive milestone—ten floors complete with five more to go—showcasing the structural ingenuity of timber construction with its striking bracing elements and advancing façade work.
The affordable housing sector continues embracing mass timber, with OWAL requesting approval for an 11-story development in downtown Oakland that would bring nearly 300 affordable units to the heart of the city. This project builds on OWAL's successful completion of a 19-story mass timber tower nearby, demonstrating how engineered wood can address critical housing needs while enhancing urban sustainability. Meanwhile, Toronto's innovative residential project at Halsap on Royal York blends a reinforced concrete core with mass timber structural elements in a 9-story building that started construction in March 2025.
Perhaps most fascinating are the emerging applications for mass timber. The newly opened Doris Duke Theater at Jacob Pillow represents an architectural phoenix, rising from the ashes of the original venue destroyed by fire in 2020. This 400-seat performance space combines the warmth of timber with cutting-edge technical capabilities. Similarly groundbreaking, recent research reveals engineered wood demonstrates superior microbial resistance compared to plastic—even after getting wet—potentially revolutionising hospital design approaches. Add to this CU Boulder's groundbreaking on a mass timber Chemistry and Applied Mathematics facility designed to be one of the university's most energy-efficient buildings, and it's clear that mass timber continues pushing boundaries across sectors and applications.
Subscribe, share, and join us each week for more inspiring developments from around the world of mass timber construction. Have an academic manuscript? We welcome submissions for review and possible publication in our journal!
Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. This is the moment you all have been waiting for. It's time for the global sensation, the one, the only, the undisputed heavyweight podcast in the world the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. And now here's Paul Kramer, your host. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are in the world today, welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. My name is Paul Kramer, your host. Welcome to another weekly episode of all things mass timber happening all around the world in many locations where mass timber is taking hold. Don't forget to hit subscribe, like, comment, share and repost anything that we have on our social media feed and, you know, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Let's have a look at what's making news around the world this week in mass timber construction land, and a big thank you goes out to Greg Boothroyd, who has provided us with images of the academic tower at the University of Toronto, which is starting to take shape. It is 10 floors down and five more to go, and the images are impressive. You can see these great bracing structures for each of the superstructure elements and the floor levels, and the facade is starting to chase up the building. So if you'd like to go and check out the University of Toronto building. Please go and have a look at our LinkedIn feed. And the team from oh Wow have requested the buy right for approval for affordable housing project at 1523 Harrison Street in Oakland. The right by approval has been requested for an 11-story infill in the downtown area of Oakland, in Almeida County. The project would add up nearly 300 units of affordable housing in the heart of the city. The project by oh Wow has shared that they have aimed to start the construction by the end of this year, 2025. The initial plans were shared in 2022, the same month as the developer started construction on the now complete 19-story mass timber tower at 15 Ted Webster Street. The two sites are adjacent to each other and were initially seen as two phases. The plan started a 20-story tower with most market rate housing. The plans grew twice through 2022 and now the latest iteration is a 28-story tower, 500 apartments. You can check out the details by going to the OWAL site or you can have a look at our LinkedIn feed.
Speaker 1:We've got a link to the article. It's all about projects underway, under development, under planning and the toronto development for the prefabricated timber structure at halsap on royal york, a nine-story purpose-built residential project has some images on our linkedin feed. You can see the way that the structure is being established. This started in March 2025 and is at the corner of Royal York and Drummond Street. It is the central core, is reinforced concrete, and then there is mass timber structure around the outside. A great image, a great project.
Speaker 1:Coming out and heading to massachusetts now and the doris duke theater has officially opened at jacob pillow in massachusetts, making this a new chapter in the long-standing dance center. The vast venue replaces the original studio destroyed by fire in 2020 and introduces a flexible, high-tech equipped space hosting a delivery of both live and digitally augmented performance. Designed in collaboration with Marvel and theater consultants, the project combines mass timber construction and advanced technical infrastructure and accommodates 400 audience members. This is an impressive project. The outside facade is made of timber and the internal is made of timber. Please do go and check out this impressive Doris Duke theater images on our LinkedIn feed, and there's a link to the article so you can read more about it.
Speaker 1:Mass timber might elevate hospital construction, as a study shows that engineered wood is more microbial resistant than plastic. Exposed wood, they've found, can resist microbial growth after it briefly gets wet. During their study, wood samples tested lower levels of bacterial abundance than the empty plastic enclosure used as a control. Numerous studies would support these properties of wood, but the particular UO-led research that would be the university's name, including scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Portland State University, wanted to explore what happens when wood gets wet and then dries. If you want to read some more, please head to our LinkedIn feed. And the CU Boulder breaks ground on the chemistry and applied mathematics facility. The building will feature modern laboratories, an NMR machine, a 237 seat auditorium and space for future quantum research. It's also designed to be one of the most energy efficient buildings in CU Boulder's history, with sustainability features including you guessed it mass timber construction. The facility is a strategic investment for the future in our economic mission, says the provost, and if you'd like to have a look at the very, very simple one sort of render for this project, you can go to our LinkedIn feed.
Speaker 1:And so that's it, folks. That's all we've got time for this week in Mastimba Construction Land. Hope that you have a great week ahead. We'll be back next week with more. Do make sure you like, share, comment, subscribe, repost and please listen in each week so that we can give you updates from around the world and what's happening in mass timber construction land, and maybe it will fuel ideas for your research project or your next project. Please, if you have an academic manuscript and you want us to have a look at it for our academic journal, we're more than happy to review manuscripts. Please send it through and we will review and if it's worthy, we will publish it. Thank you very much for tuning in. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Today. This is Paul Kramer signing off on the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. Thank you.