Innovative ‘mass timber’ products take center stage in new Bowdoin College buildings

Consigli Construction is managing construction of the Barry Mills Hall and the John and Lile Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. The two buildings, which total 50,000 square feet, are being constructed with mass timber, including cross-laminated timber (CLT), as part of the college’s effort to be carbon neutral.

With the finish line expected in January 2023, construction is winding down and the Gibbons Center has already received a certificate of occupancy. 

With classes set to begin Jan. 23, neither building will be used for classwork in the spring semester.

John Simoneau, Bowdoin’s director of capital projects, said the Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies will have a months-long process of setting up two exhibits, including moving artifacts from the current Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum on campus. Mills Hall will be dedicated in April and host a trustees’ meeting in May. 

Bowdoin achieved its goal of being carbon neutral in 2018. For the new buildings, the college wanted to avoid using fossil fuels in both construction materials and in how they’re heated and cooled. Bowdoin, which in recent years has ramped up its reliance on solar energy, is phasing out use of its central steam plant. Barry Mills Hall and the Gibbons Center will use heating and cooling systems run by electricity.

“Think of it as an oversized electric water heater,” Simoneau told Mainebiz. 

In the case of the Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies, one of the themes of a planned exhibit is to show how climate change affects the Arctic. 

HGA, the project architect, said in a report that three common building materials — concrete, steel and aluminum — account for 23% of annual global carbon emissions. Mass timber, the firm went on to say, carries embodied carbon advantages. Once the tree is harvested, carbon is locked within the timber for as long as it remains intact. 

The two new buildings, which are separate but connected by underground mechanical systems, will be the first in Maine built entirely of mass timber.

The buildings use a mix of glue-laminated timber columns and beams and cross-laminated timber panels, according to architect HGA. 

While the foundation is concrete, there’s no structural steel and no concrete in the structure above ground, said Matthew Tonello, project executive for Consigli Construction, which managed construction of both buildings.

Tonello said the construction process was faster than if they’d used conventional materials. He demonstrated the construction process in a video that showed a side-by-side comparison of the construction timeline — mass timber vs. traditional concrete-and-steel construction. 

 A new frontier

Mass timber has been used in range of projects nationwide, including apartment complexes, office buildings, retail spaces and even a flagship McDonald’s restaurant in Chicago. 

While the Bowdoin buildings take mass timber to new heights in Maine, mass timber has been used in other projects around the state. Zachau Construction has used CLT in its construction of Wessex Woods, an Avesta Housing project in Portland, and for the new addition at 317 Main Community Music Center in Yarmouth. 

Mass timber is emerging as a construction alternative, though for now the supply chain remains a challenge.

Just as Maine has an abundance of lobster but much of lobster caught here is processed in Canada, and just as wild blueberries grown in Maine are processed and dried in Michigan, Maine has plenty of wood but for now there is no one manufacturing mass timber products here. 

And, for now, there are no manufacturers of mass timber in the Northeast. Much of the supply of glue-laminated products and CLT products comes from Quebec, Alabama, Montana, the Pacific Northwest or Europe.

“Nobody makes it in the Northeast, so the nearest would be Quebec, 14 hours away,” Tonello said. 

For the Bowdoin project, much of the mass timber building material was sourced from suppliers in Austria. 

That could change. University of Maine is developing products and working hard on the effort and there are efforts in the private sector to create a mass timber production site here. Stay tuned.