By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — A new mass-timber research facility nearing completion on Louisiana Tech University’s south campus is expected to open for use this fall, giving students and researchers access to one of the first buildings of its kind in Louisiana.
Jed Walpole, architect and partner at Walpole Architects, said designing the Forest Products Innovation Center has been both a professional challenge and a personal milestone.
“Louisiana Tech is special to me. I love Louisiana Tech,” Walpole said. “Any chance that I get to work on a project at my alma mater means a lot to me.”
Walpole said his longtime interest in mass timber construction made the assignment especially meaningful.
“The merging of Louisiana Tech and mass timber is kind of a dream come true for me,” Walpole said. “I know it’s one that I’ll be very proud of for a long time.”
The Forest Products Innovation Center is being built on the university’s south campus and is designed as a fully mass-timber structure. Walpole said such buildings are common in parts of Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and their popularity has risen across the country, but they remain rare in Louisiana.
“It’s one of the first of its kind, if not the first, in the state,” Walpole said. “Certainly, in North Louisiana.”
Mass timber uses engineered wood products that enable lumber to serve as major structural components in larger buildings. Walpole said two primary materials are being used in the project: glulam beams and columns, and cross-laminated timber (CLT).
Glulam beams and columns are formed by bonding dimensional lumber into larger members sized for specific spans and loads. CLT panels are created by stacking and gluing layers of dimensional lumber in alternating directions to produce strong structural panels; some of the panels in this project are 4” thick, 9’ tall, and 35’ long.
Walpole said while North Louisiana has a long history of wood-frame construction, the project required his firm to learn new techniques and approaches.
“It took a lot of learning and was a team effort by Mike, me, and our entire firm,” he said. “Some of those concepts are the same as or very similar to traditional wood-frame construction, but when you start getting into CLT and glulam, you face different challenges we haven’t encountered before.”
The building will primarily serve as a research center for the university. Plans include one classroom, multiple laboratory spaces, a large testing lab, and a wood-processing lab for preparing and cutting materials for experiments.
Walpole said the facility will also include a kiln, an environmental chamber and other specialized equipment.
A major requirement of the project was the use of Southern yellow pine, a species abundant in Louisiana and widely tied to the region’s forest-products industry.
Historically, many mass-timber projects have relied on Douglas fir, but the innovation center was designed to showcase local resources.
“Every piece of wood in this building, whether it’s CLT, glulam, or stud walls, is Southern yellow pine,” Walpole said.
Walpole also credited Hunt, Guillot & Associates, which is serving as the civil and structural engineer on the project.
“Zach Tubb and the HGA team put in a lot of work on the structural engineering for this project, helping us bring this to life,” Walpole concluded.
Construction is targeted for completion in mid-August, with the university hoping to occupy the building at the start of the fall quarter.
If the timeline holds, the Forest Products Innovation Center will soon give Louisiana Tech students and faculty a new home for timber research while showcasing a modern use of one of North Louisiana’s oldest industries.
