University of Oregon Prototype Home Features Innovative Construction Using Oregon-Made Mass Plywood Panels

A University of Oregon (UO) research and design team has completed construction on a prototype house that showcases a sustainable, energy-efficient alternative to traditional home construction, KTVZ reported (11-6-24).

Researchers with the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration of the UO and Oregon State University (OSU), spent two years designing and building the 760-square-foot house made from mass plywood panels manufactured in Oregon by Freres Engineered Wood. The institute will welcome visitors to an open house November 7th showcasing the project.

So far, the small house is making a big impression. The test home demonstrates a new construction model that could help with housing shortages, the economy, and wildfire mitigation, said Judith Sheine, a UO professor of architecture and the institute’s director of design, who led the project with assistant professor of architecture Mark Fretz.

Sheine hopes the project will encourage architects and builders to consider mass timber, the products made from cross-laminated layers of veneer or lumber that the institute researches and tests, for prefabricated housing. This first prototype marks a big step forward, Sheine said. The model home could represent a new solution to help address Oregon’s housing crisis, especially affordable options known as middle or workforce housing.

Rather than starting with a frame of two-by-fours, they built the two-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom home with mass plywood panels shaped to fit together like pieces of a gingerbread house. In the future, Sheine said, your new home could arrive in a flatpack like an Ikea bookshelf. A crew with a small crane called a telehandler would then assemble the pieces—more quickly and efficiently than traditional construction.

A founding member of the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition, the institute received a portion of the $41.4 million awarded by the US Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge in 2022. The prototyping project was one of nine funded by the award. That federal support, along with ongoing funding from the state of Oregon, allows the institute to drive mass timber research and development, contributing to sustainable housing and resilient forestry initiatives.