Second Annual Softwood Lumber Board/US Forest Service Mass Timber Competition Open for Proposals

The Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Department jointly announced on Wednesday (3-1-23) that the Forest Service’s second annual “Mass Timber Competition: Building to Net-Zero Carbon” is now open for proposals from eligible teams.

According to reporting by the Architectural Record, the competition was created to promote and expand the use of mass timber in American building projects. The competition awards $2 million in total to project proposals that showcase commercially viable and sustainable mass timber or hybrid mass timber building solutions and supports the burgeoning sectors of wood products design, engineering, construction and manufacturing.

The competition is fully supported by the SLB and USDA. Funding for the competition aims to support the use of mass timber systems—cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glulam among them—and to “help project teams overcome barriers to the use of a new building material and system, most notably the cost of analyzing design and engineering alternatives and verifying that these solutions comply with applicable codes,” per a competition overview.