TimberQuest Provides Innovative, Sustainable, Highly Efficient Solutions for Mass Timber Classrooms for California K–12 and Community Colleges

TimberQuest is the partnership between XL Construction, Milpitas, with Aedis Architects, San Jose and Daedalus Structural Engineering, based in Saratoga, and combines the organizations’ unique expertise in 21st century learning environments with mass timber design and construction.

TimberQuest is an innovative, sustainable and highly efficient solution for building cost-effective, prefabricated “mass timber” classrooms for the California K-12 and community college markets. The basic building block of TimberQuest construction is precision-machined, cross-laminated timber (CLT) that are available in large format structural slabs. It is strong, yet lightweight, fire resistant and leaves these structures with rich exposed wood finishes. TimberQuest employs cross-laminated timber to create prefabricated wall and roof panels offsite that are erected and installed at school construction sites, enabling buildings to be constructed in significantly shorter timeframes. The structures are pre-checked and approved by California’s Division of the State Architect (DSA), so they can be used for any public school or community college project in California, reducing permitting time from six months to a single day. Most buildings can be constructed in 10 weeks over a summer break. In addition to expedited project completion, TimberQuest buildings offer a healthy and eco-friendly environment. Their interiors feature the warmth and airiness of a tall wood ceiling, extensive natural lighting and an openness that contrasts with the sterile, box-like modular buildings often seen on many school campuses. TimberQuest structures are high-quality and permanent — with life expectancies of 50 years or more — with more usable floor space than traditional modular buildings. Yet, they can be delivered quickly due to the pre-approved design as well as rapid factory fabrication and onsite erection, offering public and private schools the best of all worlds, the company said.