Understanding the Cost of Mass Timber: Design, Drivers, and Case Studies
Sub Title Goes Here
For architects, engineers, and owners working with mass timber in commercial and institutional construction, an understanding of the economics behind the material is essential. This one-hour seminar will explore the cost drivers, value propositions, and design strategies that influence the financial viability of mass timber projects.
Participants will learn how early design decisions impact cost efficiency, hear lessons learned from built case studies, and gain insight from cost comparisons with equivalent steel and concrete buildings. The session will also present findings from a macroeconomic study that analyzed three buildings redesigned for mass timber in Minneapolis, Denver, and Atlanta, revealing region-specific cost impacts, schedule advantages, potential performance advantages, and critical design considerations.
- Location:
- Online
- Date/Time:
- September 3, 2025 | 2:00pm-3:00pm ET
- Credits:
- Attendees can earn 1.0 AIA/CES LUs, 1.0 PDH credit or 0.1 ICC credit (no HSW)
Speaker
Chris Kendall, PE | KL&A Engineers & Builders
Chris Kendall has over 20 years of experience as a consulting structural engineer and is a principal at KL&A Engineers & Builders. His design experience spans various building types and materials, with significant mass timber experience including Loading Dock, Platte 15, Burwell Center for Career Achievement, Cirrus, and others currently in design. Chris is passionate about efficient, cost-effective structural design and believes that collaboration between the design team, contractor, timber supplier, and erector is required to achieve the best project outcomes. Chris is known by his architectural clients for creativity and sensitivity to architecture.
Suzanne Robinson, P.E., LEED AP | LeMessurier Structural Engineers
Suzanne Robinson, P.E., LEED AP BD+C, is the Director of Sustainability at LeMessurier Structural Engineers. She has over 25 years of diverse experience working in the building industry on national and international projects. Her background includes structural engineering, architecture, education, and sustainable design consulting. In her role at LeMessurier, she works on providing internal and external knowledge sharing so that sustainability can be integrated into the engineers’ daily work. She is currently involved in new initiatives around embodied carbon through the SEI Sustainability Committee, Carbon Leadership Forum, and collaboration on mass timber research as part of a multi-year US Forestry Wood Innovation Grant.
David Robb | Turner Construction Company
David Robb has been with Turner for 14 years, with experience on jobsites and in his current role as Project Preconstruction Manager. David is motivated by innovative sustainable materials and emerging technologies and methods, with particular expertise in strategizing ways to reduce the overall embodied carbon impact of projects through material selection, while minimizing cost premiums and schedule delays. Recent success includes piloting low carbon concrete solutions and performing cost analysis studies on different structure types that led to a project opting for a mass timber design in lieu of structural steel. David holds a degree in Construction Management from Wentworth Institute of Technology.
This webinar is the fourth in a series of educational webinars hosted by WoodWorks. These webinars are tailored to Army Corps projects, as well as actively reviewing and providing commentary on several mass timber pilot projects. This assistance is made possible through funding from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and coordinated in partnership with Pete Stynoski, PhD, Research Civil Engineer at the U.S. Army ERDC (Peter.B.Stynoski@usace.army.mil).
