Image courtesy of Diller+Scofidio Renfro
Boston University unveiled designs for a new academic building that would become the tallest mass timber tower in Massachusetts.
BU’s Pardee School of Global Studies would occupy the 12-story tower at 250 Bay State Road, consolidating classrooms and offices spread across the Charles River campus.
With a height of 186 feet, the 70,000-square-foot building maximizes the height allowed for wood-framed buildings under the International Building Code, according to a project filing submitted to the Boston Planning Department.
The university envisions the project as a leader in minimizing the use of embedded carbon in building materials. Embedded carbon has become a recent focus of regulators’ efforts to reduce the use of greenhouse gases during manufacturing of traditional construction materials such as steel and concrete. Mass timber projects typically use manufactured wood panels.
Designed by New York-based architects Diller+Scofidio Renfro, the Bay State Road project would include classrooms, offices, a student lounge and 12th-floor event room and terrace.
The proposed height is a tradeoff for a slim 6,100-square-foot footprint to maximize open space and minimize shadows on the Charles River parklands and “BU Beach”, according to BU’s filings.
Small multifamily projects using mass timber construction have been completed in Roxbury, and the Suffolk Downs redevelopment plans include an 8-story mass timber residential building. The John W. Olver Design Building, an 87,500-square-foot mass timber building, was completed in 2017 at University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Advances in mass timber’s fire-resistant properties have prompted building regulators to approve taller heights for such structures. The nation’s tallest mass timber tower, Ascent MKE, opened in 2022 in Milwaukee after receiving building code variances for a 284-foot height.
The first phase of Harvard University’s Enterprise Research Campus under construction in Allston includes the David Rubenstein Treehouse, a 61,500-square-foot conference center built with mass timber.
Boston officials also chose a 14-story mass timber design for a mixed-income residential tower to be built on top of the Boston Public Library’s West End branch. That design recently entered permitting as well, but it will only top out at 165 feet, according to plans filed with the city last month.
Wood-framed buildings also are starting to gain traction in commercial development. Toyota Financial Services recently leased 242,000 square feet at a mass timber building developed by Crow Holdings in Frisco, Texas. And Milwaulkee is home to the nation’s tallest mass timber building, a residential tower, and could become home to the world’s tallest mass timber building, a 50-story mixed-use tower proposed last year.
A rendering of a circulation space in the proposed Pardee School of Global Studies tower at Boston University. Image courtesy of Diller+Scofidio Renfro
