Swinerton Wins Woodwork Wood Design Award
Swinerton’s First Tech Federal Credit Union project in Hillsboro, Oregon was awarded Woodworks 2020 U.S. “Jury’s Choice” Wood Design Award. Kramer Gehlen & Associates were the Structural Engineers. Hacker was the Architect on the project.
Awards will be presented at Wood Design’s Symposiums across the country. They were presented in 10 categories.
“The WoodWorks award program celebrates excellence in wood building design, and excellent projects are often conceived and executed by people with a passion, not only for quality, but innovation,” said WoodWorks President and CEO, Jennifer Cover as part of their official press release.
“As a result, the winning projects are a kind of bellwether for market trends—such as growing interest in mass timber, hybrid projects that combine mass timber with light wood framing or other materials, panelization, and greater focus on sustainability, carbon footprint, and resilience. These are all things we’re seeing in the market that are also reflected in this year’s winning projects.”
About The Project
The First Tech Federal Credit Union Corporate Office project was completed in 2018. At five stories and more than 150,000 square feet, the office was the largest cross-laminated beam building by square footage in the U.S. at the time of nomination and remains among the largest in the nation today. It put Swinerton on the map as one of the nation’s experts in wooden construction. Since the project, Swinerton has formed a dedicated Mass Timber group and taken on many projects including the
Washington County Event Center and OSU Cascades Academic Building 2.
Mass Timber
Swinerton Mass Timber excels as an early trade partner in either a design-build or heavy design-assist capacity. Delivering a mass timber project is all about the quality control of the details, and harnessing the full potential of prefabrication.
Wooden construction has seen a resurgence in downtowns with a push from architects and developers for sustainable and aesthetically pleasing construction materials. “When you stop inside a wood building, it just feels good – it’s a very human product,” said Christopher Evans, an operations manager and head of the mass timber group at Swinerton. Coupled with the International Code Council’s vote to ease restrictions on height and the reduced timeline of mass timber projects, it is fast becoming the material of choice for many developers.
