How much abuse can Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) take?

Being about a month away from moving my office into a Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) building, I am of course interested in answers to this question. As it turns out, many recent research projects proved that CLT can evidently handle quite a bit of abuse (beyond regular day-to-day loading and use)! I may be biased, but […] Read more..

View UMass’ growth 1984-now in Google Earth’s Timelapse

Google just released a pretty amazing tool: Google Earth Engine Timelapse. This interactive tool (which is embedded below and can be reached via the link) lets you view global aerial photography from the past 32 years in an interactive timelapse video. Best of it, you can zoom into any region of the world and see what […] Read more..

Opening of T3 building continues recent mass timber building trend: Six examples

Today’s opening of the T3 building in Minneapolis marks a spectacular milestone: The construction of the tallest contemporary heavy-timber building in the US so far! I am saying “so far” because as this trend continues, it will surely by surpassed in height very soon. Completion of the T3 building continues a recent trend of larger, […] Read more..

Upgrading our Bath Fan Light – for Under $25

Our bathroom fan light was driving me crazy for a while now. No matter how much wattage I would put into it, the plastic cover only allowed for a very dim light to come out. And the arrangement of the bulb in the fixture together with the housing forced most light to emit downward and to […] Read more..

Second edition of “Architectural Design with SketchUp” is now available!

I am very excited to be announcing the release of the second edition of my book “Architectural Design with SketchUp” today! For this edition, I went back through the text and updated and improved a lot of content. As before, my main goal was to keep it relevant for as large a variety of SketchUp users as possible and […] Read more..

Building a Wood-Concrete Composite Bench with CLTs

Some of my students recently finished building a “severely overdesigned” wood-concrete composite bench that serves as a mockup for the floor system in our new building at UMass. You can read all about it (and check out the photo gallery) here: http://bct.eco.umass.edu/news/building-a-wood-concrete-floor-mockup-bench/

Amazing SketchUp Timber Frame Modeling

[sketchfab id=”xuRi1rQTziz4iJqDkjayjOaXq86″ start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”1″] I just came across this amazing 3D model of a round barn by Mike Beganyi, a timber framer and SketchUp modeler from Vermont. I know, it’s two years old, but check it out – and do it full-screen! It is such a great example of beautiful timberframing, excellent SketchUp modeling, and […] Read more..