Oregon State University in recent years has played a major role in promoting the growth of mass timber in the Pacific Northwest. Now the university is doing so via its own 22,000-square-foot facility in Oregon City.

Designed by Soderstrom Architects, the new Extension Service Education Center will feature an array of mass-timber elements.

“It all comes from them,” said Michael Shea, a Soderstrom Architects principal. “They wanted a Cascadian sort of Northwest design … like Timberline Lodge, so it’s very reminiscent of Timberline. Years ago we did some remodeling there, so we do have some expertise. The idea is that it’s a wood-framed, heavy-timber building with glulam columns and beams; they wanted to highlight wood products of the region.”

Clackamas County commissioners approved project plans in October 2019. The new building will be located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Beavercreek Road and Warner Milne Road – about two blocks east of OSU‘s existing Extension Service office on Clackamas County’s Red Soils campus.

Both cross-laminated timber and mass plywood manufactured by Freres Lumber Co. of Mill City will be used. The building will include a 150-seat meeting and training room, multiple smaller meeting rooms and even a kitchen to accommodate cooking and nutrition education.

“The second floor is all office space, like a big day-lit bar,” Shea said. “It’s a big hall with cubicles and little boxes, and everyone will get to see the nice-looking CLT up at the roof. The daylight is really quite spectacular too. There are large windows and some hidden clerestories that you can’t see from the street.”

Plus, the building is designed to achieve net-zero energy use by producing more energy than it consumes.

“The roof uses insulated metal panels to get the high R (insulation) value, and that’s mostly tempered with (photovoltaic) panels,” Shea said. “And then the mechanical systems are pretty much state of the art, while the PVs make up the difference.”

Instead of exposed mechanical systems typical of recent CLT designs, the new building will have an 18-inch-tall access space between the first and second stories. This will hide HVAC, electrical, plumbing, data and other systems.

“It’s nice to see the wood, but it would be great to see the wood without all that stuff in the way,” Shea said. “It should work out well visually and acoustically.”

Heating, cooling and ventilation are separated. Heated and chilled water will come from Clackamas County’s central plant serving its Red Soils campus.

“We’re supplying 100 percent fresh, outdoor air,” Shea said. “There’s no recycled air. On the design side we know the dedicated outdoor air systems are healthier, and that’s part of the whole sustainability story of the building. It’s not something the Extension service was particularly interested in but I’m sure they appreciate it now.”

Also, the building will be constructed to Level 4 seismic resiliency so that it can serve Clackamas County officials as an emergency operations center.

Gardening education will take place within the building. A “Master Gardener Clinic” will be open to the public.

“The ground floor is where the Extension Service has its public service counter and suite for master gardeners,” Shea said. “It was interesting designing for them. They said ‘Our finishes have to be sturdy; people are going to be bringing in muddy, wet plants.’ They also have a lot of programs for the public and school kids, and they have a suite of offices there for that.”

Construction is expected to begin in June, Shea said. P&C Construction is set to serve as the general contractor.

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Officials hosted a brief ceremony Monday to celebrate the start of construction on a new headquarters for an influential philanthropic organization.

Meyer Memorial Trust will occupy a three-story, 20,000-square-foot building due to rise on a 0.46-acre lot at 2045 N. Vancouver Ave. Project^ is developing the project, which was designed by LEVER Architecture. O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders is serving as general contractor.

Currently, Meyer Memorial Trust’s 42 employees work in 11,000 square feet of leased office space in the Gregory Lofts building, at 425 N.W. 10th Ave.

The new headquarters will have a 50-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array and other features expected to help gain a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating. A unique roofline is intended to provide as much south-facing area as possible for the solar array, LEVER Architecture project director Chandra Robinson said.

“With a focus on environmental sustainability, the building has been designed to use 30 percent less energy than if it was built to minimum code standards,” Project^ partner Anyeley Hallova said Monday. “In addition, we’ll be sourcing materials that were originally harvested and/or locally manufactured. This includes the mass plywood that will be sourced from a Central Oregon lumber mill and manufactured there.”

Freres Lumber, based in Lyons, southeast of Salem, is the manufacturer of the mass plywood panels. The veneer-based products are customizable, and can be as large as 12 feet wide, 48 feet long and 24 inches thick. Freres Lumber previously worked with LEVER Architecture on the Mass Plywood Pavilion built in 2017 at the Portland Art Museum as part of an exhibition.

The new building’s design, Robinson said, is intended to reflect the late Fred G. Meyer’s values. The team sought to create connections with the community and the natural surroundings, and ensure the building would be sustainable and equitable. There will be a prominent front porch, a plaza, bicycle parking and landscaping.

“It’s creating an asset that doesn’t currently exist in the neighborhood,” Robinson said. “The other thing about the ground floor of the building is it’s very transparent; you can really see through the building and see the activity happening inside.”

Light-colored, metal, folded panels accent the building façade and offer “simple yet dynamic visual interest throughout the day,” Hallova said.

Even the landscaping will bolster the design themes, with plants of significance to native Columbia River tribes.

Inside, a library, an educational garden, gathering space and other amenities will contribute to the same themes, Hallova added.

Officials expect construction to wrap up in about a year. One of the project goals is for at least 43 percent participation by minority-owned or women-owned firms. A similar percentage is being sought for participation by apprentices.

“Meyer has asked us to do much more than just meet goals for equity and inclusion,” O’Neill Construction Group President Maurice Rahming said. “We’re not interested in lip service.”

Meyer Memorial Trust, founded in 1982, is now one of Portland’s largest nonprofits. Since its inception, the organization has awarded grants totaling nearly $800 million to more than 3,300 recipients around the Pacific Northwest.

The group purchased the Vancouver Avenue property for $4.96 million in January 2018 and demolished an old cinder block and sheet metal building previously used by Sergeants Towing. Timber supports from the old building were salvaged for use in the new one.

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A 95-year-old lumber company wants to become Oregon’s second mass timber manufacturer, by turning its plywood veneers into a low-cost alternative to cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Freres Lumber Co. is building a 4-acre expansion at its Lyons mill and has begun installing a wood press and milling machine so it can press and form mass plywood panels (MPP). The product would be a lot like the plywood the mill already produces, only much larger and – pending approval by the American Plywood Association – certified to bear structural loads.

There’s hope at the company that MPP will join CLT in high-rise construction once expected building code changes occur and a supply chain establishes itself in the Pacific Northwest.

“It’s an extremely compelling idea and it can open up a lot of different marketplaces,” Vice President Tyler Freres said.

Leadership at the company decided two years ago to pursue the venture after Freres and his brother and fellow vice president, Kyle, visited a CLT manufacturer in Austria. Tyler Freres said they noticed how much raw material was going to waste using sawn hardwood lumber to make engineered wood panels.

“So when we came back, we worked on ways to potentially use a plywood-like panel, or veneers in different orientations, to try to replicate that type of product,” he said.

Freres says there are a couple of ways MPP creates less waste than CLT. Veneers, like those Freres Lumber uses to make plywood, are peeled off a log using a lathe.  Lumber, by contrast, is made by sawing a log into smaller pieces, so there’s less loss using plywood compared to hardwood lumber. MPP also is said to be efficient because knots and other defects in lumber must be sawn around, which usually results in scrapping usable material.

MPP also lacks the need for intermediate facilities to kiln-dry lumber down to a suitable moisture content, as is the case with CLT.

At the Freres mill in Lyons, a testing facility is already rolling out prototype MPP, and a patent application is pending on the mill’s process.  The mill expansion project could be completed as early as late October, with commercial roll-out potentially ready by mid-December. The company expects to receive APA certification within nine months.

But that doesn’t mean smooth sailing from there, according to two industry experts.

“I’d be surprised if they’re able to do it in 18 months,” said Ethan Martin, senior technical specialist for Woodworks.

Freres Lumber is working to get the product certified with APA as a grade of CLT, Martin said. The APA’s certification standard – PRG-320 – is a performance-based standard, meaning it has to demonstrate it can handle a specific load. But the standards to get certified by the International Code Council, which writes the building code, are more detailed than the APA’s.

“Even if it gets PRG-320-certified, the building code still says, ‘CLT manufactured in accordance with PRG-320.’ It doesn’t say composite lumber, or plywood, manufactured in accordance with PRG-320,” said Martin, who toured the Freres expansion this month. “Years ago, the wood industry all stepped back and wrote a CLT handbook, did all the testing, and got it into the building code. I’d say Freres is about where CLT was four to five years ago.”

What seems more likely to Martin is that over the next few years, as larger code issues are worked out, Freres Lumber supplies a few “one-off” projects that receive special permission to use MPP. Aside from those one-offs, the company would be able to use its new expansion facility to produce other products.

Right now, Oregon is home to one of the U.S.’s two APA-certified CLT manufacturers. DR Johnson in Riddle for decades focused on high-end Douglas fir products until it became the first American company to branch into CLT. To produce its CLT panels – which are typically made from lower-grade lumber – DR Johnson buys lumber from elsewhere. Freres said this is one way his company will be more vertically-integrated than the CLT model.

But Timm Locke of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute said he isn’t sure it matters.

“It’s two different ways to skin a cat,” he said. “In fact, the possibility exists that if this MPP takes off, Freres may find that they need to buy veneer on the open market to support their own manufacturing. And they may find that their veneer is more appropriate for other uses.”

Locke says one drawback with MPP could be in aesthetics. CLT is popular with designers because of increased structural possibilities and a clean look. MPP manufacturers have a possible solution in using hardwood as a surface layer, already common in smaller plywood panels.

Locke said OFRI is “equally excited” about CLT and MPP. (Tyler Freres is an OFRI board member.)

If a product has the same design values as CLT and it also competes in the market to be used in placed of poured concrete, Locke thinks it will only lead to more buildings being made of wood.

“I think what the Freres brothers are doing is an innovative approach to manufacturing,” he said, “and I’m happy to see traditional wood products companies doing it.”

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