Hixon Center Urban Conference

About the Conference

This virtual conference is co-convened by the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, Yale School of Architecture, Yale School of the Environment, and the Center for Industrial Ecology and will focus on the potential of mass timber as a primary building material in cities. There is growing evidence that replacing traditional urban building materials such as steel and concrete with mass timber has multiple benefits, ranging from reduced environmental impacts to structural resilience and cost savings. In fact, using mass timber at scale in urban areas offers the chance for much needed short term carbon emission reductions in the building sector; the majority of future population growth will occur in urban areas, and most of the buildings to host this growing population still need to be built. A transition from mineral to biogenic building materials then offers a double carbon benefit, the upstream carbon savings in material production and the long-term carbon storage over a building’s lifetime. This half-day conference will explain the potential of mass timber and how it differs from other construction (session 1) before it explores the environmental implications of substituting building materials (session 2).

The audience for this conference includes YSE students & alumni, architects, foresters, practitioners, city planners, developers, and researchers.

This program has been reviewed and is approved for professional CFE credits by the Society of American Foresters (Category 1: 3.00 hours) and by the Connecticut Certified Forest Practitioners (1 CEU) and the American Institute of Architects (3 HSW CEUs). For architect CEUs, credit earned by attending this symposium will be reported to CES Records for AIA members. Certificates of Completion for non-AIA members will be available upon request. If you are not a member of the AIA, but wish to be receive documentation for attending the event, please let us know via email at uri@yale.edu. Please note that to receive any CEU credit, viewers must remain logged onto the Zoom webinar for the entirety of the event.

On behalf of the Hixon Center we appreciate the support and efforts by our organizing partners, Barbara Reck (Center for Industrial Ecology), Alan Organschi (Yale School of Architecture), and Gary Dunning (The Forest School) to co-convene this conference.

Conference Summary

Video

Schedule of Events

12:00pm

Opening Remarks

Karen Seto, PhD, Yale School of the Environment

Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science; IPCC Working Group III Coordinating Lead Author

Moderator

Speaker Information

An urban and land change scientist, Karen Seto is one of the world’s leading experts on contemporary urbanization and global change. She uses satellite remote sensing, field interviews, and modeling methods to understand how urbanization will affect the planet, including land change, food systems, biodiversity, and climate change. She has pioneered methods to reconstruct urban land use with satellite imagery and has developed novel methods to forecast urban expansion. She has conducted urbanization research in China for twenty years and in India for more than ten. Dr. Seto has served on numerous national and international scientific bodies. She was a coordinating lead author for the 2022 IPCC 6th Assessment Report and the 2014 IPCC 5th Assessment Report. For both reports she co-led the chapter on urban mitigation of climate change. She currently co-chairs the U.S. National Academies Climate Security Roundtable, established by the direction of Congress to help better understand and anticipate the ways climate change affects U.S. national security interests. She also co-chairs the U.S. National Academies Subcommittee on U.S.- China Scientific Engagement. From 2000 to 2008, she was faculty at Stanford, where she held joint appointments in the Woods Institute for the Environment and the School of Earth Sciences. She has received many awards for her scientific contributions, including the Outstanding Contributions to Remote Sensing Research Award from the American Association of Geographers. Dr. Seto is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and a Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received a PhD in Geography from Boston University.

12:05pm to 1:30pm

Session 1: Mass timber and its application in urban midrise buildings

This session will explore the state of the art in mass timber fabrication and building design. Panelists will discuss different types of mass timber and their respective uses and how building designs need to be adapted to accommodate the novel materials. Regulatory aspects will be addressed to understand how building codes needed to be adapted, including, for example, as it relates to the behavior of mass timber in fires and earthquakes.

Alan Organschi, Yale School of Architecture

Senior Critic

Speaker Information

Alan Organschi is a principal and partner at Gray Organschi Architecture (www.grayorganschi.com), an architectural practice in New Haven, Connecticut recognized internationally for its integration of design, construction, and environmental research. He is also the founder of the fabrication workshop and construction management firm JIG Design Build which in 2018 created the Ecological Living Module, a fully self-sustaining micro house for the United Nations Environment Program. As a member of the Senior Design and Technology Faculty at the Yale School of Architecture, Mr. Organschi directs the newly inaugurated Yale Building Project LAB, which conducts advanced research in the contemporary building sector, its global environmental impacts, and its potential to mitigate climate change through the adoption of bio-based building assemblies and circular economic construction practices. In addition to teaching at Yale, he currently serves for the 2019 and 2020 academic years as the Portman Critic at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture. His ongoing research project, the Timber City Initiative (www.timbercity.org), examines the application of emerging structural wood fiber technologies to the construction of global cities. Timber CIty has been awarded grants from the Hines Fund for Advanced Sustainability Research in Architecture, the US Forest Service Wood Innovation Grant program and the SITRA Finland innovation Fund for the Circular Economy. He has written and lectured extensively on the carbon storage benefits of biogenic material substitution in urban building. He was one of the lead authors on “Buildings as a Global Carbon Sink,” published this past January in Nature Sustainability and is a co-author of the upcoming book Carbon: A Field Manual For Building Designers and its associated website www.decarbonizedesign.com. In addition to features in numerous publications, Gray Organschi Architecture was recognized by the Architectural League of New York as an Emerging Voice in Architecture and has received American Architecture Awards for the Storage Barn in Washington, CT, the Common Ground High School in New Haven, and the Ecological Living Module at the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan. In 2012, Mr. Organschi and his partner Elizabeth Gray were honored for their work with an Arts and Letters Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Jennifer Cover, WoodWorks

President & CEO

Speaker Information

Jennifer Cover is a California licensed professional engineer and President & CEO of WoodWorks. She has been with WoodWorks since its inception thirteen years ago and took on the role of leading the program seven years ago. The objective of this non-profit program is to make it easier to design, engineer and construct buildings utilizing innovative wood materials such as mass timber to create a more sustainable built environment. Her experience includes business development, market analysis, project management and structural design, all with an emphasis on wood construction. She has an MS in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a BS in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Nick Milestone, US Softwood Lumber Board

Senior Vice President

Speaker Information

Nick Milestone (BSc Quantity Surveying, BSc.Hons, Msc. Project Management) is the Senior Vice President for the US Softwood Lumber Board and consultant to Katerra Inc, North America and is currently Project Director on the world’s largest Mass Timber Project in Singapore. Prior to joining Nick held the position of Director for Off-Site and Innovation for the Wm Hare Group (UK, UAE and Singapore) developing building systems in Mass Timber, Structural Steel and load bearing Light Gauge Steel structures. Following a brief spell working in Singapore for the Tiong Seng Construction Group in 2017. Nick was with the Bowmer & Kirkland construction group from 2002 to 2017 and was the Managing Director of B & K Structures Ltd, the UK’s largest and most successful structural steel and mass timber design and construction business.

The learnings and innovations gathered from 34 years’ experience in the UK ‘off-site’ construction industry have helped develop a successful mass timber structures business utilizing the key components of steel, glulam, cross laminated timber, structural timber cassettes and light gauge steel framing technology for the residential, education, leisure, commercial and retail markets delivering over 350 landmark projects for Blue Chip Clients.

Nick is a Director and the current Chairman of TRADA (Timber Research and Development Association), the UK’s first timber research association founded in 1934. Through TRADA and in consultation with Industry heads such as Arup, Nick lead the UK’s first ‘National Structural Timber Specification’ covering the design, manufacture and erection tolerances for solid wood construction. Other key publications include: The design and performance of Cross Laminated Timber.

Nick also led and chaired the working committee for the Mass Engineered Timber Handbook for Singapore, developed in conjunction with the BCA, building construction authority of Singapore. Nick has been in the construction industry since 1986, starting off as a trainee quantity surveyor progressing through to senior quantity surveyor / construction manager / Managing Director.

John Beauchamp, Hixon Properties Incorporated

Chief Investment Officer

Speaker Information

John S. Beauchamp has been with Hixon Properties since 1998 and currently serves as the Chief Investment Officer for the company. In this capacity, John oversees all aspects of the company’s real estate acquisitions and development activities, including site selection, capital structuring, pre-development, construction, and dispositions. Before joining Hixon, John practiced real estate law with the firm of Cox & Smith in San Antonio. John holds a B.B.B., J.D., and an M.B.A., each from the University of Texas at Austin. He resides in San Antonio with his wife Courtney and their two children.

Steve Marshall, SmartLam North America

VP for Sales, Marketing, and Policy

Moderator

Speaker Information

Steve Marshall has had 41 years of experience with the US Forest Service. Since 2013 he has played a primary role in establishing a cross laminated timber sector in the US. His creation and leadership of the federal Wood Innovations Program helped the entire mass timber sector grow. Wood Innovations supported factory construction, early adaptor buildings, training for sector players, creation of the annual Mass Timber Conference, code revisions, materials testing, and much more.

1:30pm to 2:55pm

Session 2: The implications of material selection in building design on the carbon budget

This session presents the carbon benefits of biogenic building materials in urban areas compared to current steel and concrete applications, discusses to what extent existing forests could meet a potentially sharp increase in timber demand, and the importance of sustainable end-of-life management options for mass timber applications, namely component reuse and recycling. As an alternative path towards low-carbon buildings it will also discuss the potential of novel low-carbon technologies for steel and concrete to become less carbon-intensive materials.

Chad Oliver, Yale School of the Environment

Pinchot Professor of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Director of Yale‘s Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry

Reflector

Speaker Information

Professor Oliver’s initial research focused on the basic understanding of how forests develop and how silviculture can be applied to ecological systems most effectively. Much of this work is incorporated in a book he wrote entitled Forest Stand Dynamics (1990, and update edition in 1996) with a former student as coauthor. He has continued this work; during the past decades he has also examined how this understanding can help resolve scientific, technical, and management issues at the landscape and policy levels. He has worked on computer decision support systems at the stand and landscape levels. He has just published a book, Global Resources and the Environment (Cambridge University Press; 2018; 512 pp; Fatma Arf Oliver, coauthor). Professor Oliver has considerable experience advising public and private forest resource organizations in the United States and abroad. His work has taken him to all parts of the United States and to Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Turkey, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Austria, Liberia, Kenya, and Australia. Professor Oliver is into phased retirement. He has recently retired.

Galina Churkina, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Senior Scientist

Speaker Information

Galina Churkina holds diploma in Mathematics from the Moscow State Lomonosov University in Russia and PhD from the School of Forestry, University of Montana, USA. Galina researched and taught at the flagship institutions and universities including Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, School of Natural Resources and Environment (University of Ann Arbor), Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Galina Churkina was a recipient of fellowships from Open Society Foundations, the German Science Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. She received the Women of Distinction award from the Soroptimist International of the Americas. Elsevier issued her the reviewer recognition for outstanding contribution in reviewing. Galina Churkina enjoys and has an extensive experience in inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations. She has served as a scientific advisor to interdisciplinary research projects as well as private companies. She is an associate editor of the Urban Ecology section at the Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution and has been a member of review boards in Europe and in the USA.

Rupert Myers, Imperial College London

Lecturer in Sustainable Materials Engineering and leader of the Myers Group

Speaker Information

Rupert J. Myers has worked across various engineering/science disciplines and locations, from Australia (Uni. of Melbourne), to the United States (UC Berkeley, Yale, MIT), and to Europe (EMPA, Uni. of Edinburgh, ICL). Rupert currently champions his mission, to reduce environmental burdens through sustainable engineering, by focusing his research and teaching on materials that are virtually unmatched in importance to society, such as cement and metals, and the services/products that they provide, e.g., shelter/buildings, infrastructure, and cities. He leads inter(/trans)disciplinary projects in this space, which notably couple industrial ecology and materials engineering/chemistry, in collaboration with various domestic and international academic and non-academic partners. Rupert is a member of the International Society of Industrial Ecology.

Barbara Reck, Yale School of the Environment

Senior Research Scientist

Speaker Information

Dr. Reck’s research focuses on the sustainability of material use in society, informing environmental and resource policy as well as circular economy assessments. Beyond her extensive work on metals (namely nickel and stainless steel) her research includes studies on plastics and fibers. She has conducted in-depth analyses on metal recycling and its energy implications, and has developed metal recycling indicators, metal criticality assessments, and scenarios on the future supply and demand of major metals. Dr. Reck served as the inaugural node lead Systems Analysis and Integration at the REMADE Institute, a U.S. Manufacturing Institute that seeks to reduce energy use in U.S. manufacturing. She regularly serves on advisory boards of international research projects and is an active member of the International Society for Industrial Ecology.

Clark Binkley, International Forestry Investment Advisors, LLC

Managing Director

Speaker Information

Clark S. Binkley, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert in forestry investment with experience on all continents except Antarctica. He served as the Chief Investment Officer for both GreenWood Resources and the Hancock Timber Resource Group. Between those assignments, he founded International Forestry Investment Advisors (IFIA) to develop and implement innovative, socially responsible high-return timberland investment strategies. Before joining the timberland investment business, he had a distinguished academic career as the Dean of the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia and at Yale University in the School of the Environment where he was the Frederick K. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Forest Resource Management. He has served the Boards of Directors of West Fraser Timber, Timberwest, Pacific Forest Products and Cellfor. Binkley holds degrees in Applied Mathematics and in Engineering from Harvard University and in Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University.

Mark Wishnie, BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group

Chief Sustainability Officer & Head, Landscape Capital

Speaker Information

Mark Wishnie is Chief Sustainability Officer & Head, Landscape Capital, at the BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group, where he leads sustainability and climate-focused investment across the firm’s c. $3.5 billion / 2.6 million acre global timberland portfolio. Mark previously directed The Nature Conservancy’s Global Forestry & Wood Products team, where he managed a portfolio of initiatives aimed at delivering on the climate mitigation potential of forests and the forest economy. Earlier in his career, Mark co-founded and directed the Native Species Reforestation Project (PRORENA), a joint research program of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Yale University, and served as Program Director of the Yale Tropical Resources Institute. Mark has also consulted to governments, universities, and Fortune 500 companies on forest finance, management and restoration. Mark holds a BS in Forest Management from the University of Washington and a Master of Forest Science from Yale University.

Yuan Yao, Yale School of the Environment

Assistant Professor of Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Systems

Moderator

Speaker Information

Dr. Yuan Yao’s research is motivated by the increasing need for sustainable solutions that can support industrial development without compromising the environment or depleting the resources for future generations. Her research investigates how emerging technologies and industrial development will affect the environment. She uses interdisciplinary approaches in industrial ecology, sustainable engineering, and machine learning to develop systems analysis tools to support engineering and policy decisions towards sustainability. She develops new methods and integrated modeling frameworks to assess, advance, and optimize industrial systems for improved environmental and societal outcomes. Dr. Yao received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) in 2019. Dr. Yao has been leading collaborative projects with U.S. national labs, private companies, and non-profits. Current research projects focus on the bioeconomy and sustainable production.

2:55pm to 3:00pm

Closing Remarks

Phillip Bernstein, Yale School of Architecture

Associate Dean and Professor Adjunct

Speaker Information

Phil Bernstein is an architect, technologist and educator who has taught at the School of Architecture since 1988 and where he received his B.A (honors) and M.Arch. He was formerly a Vice President at Autodesk where he was responsible for setting the company’s future vision and strategy for BIM technology as well as cultivating and sustaining the firm’s relationships with strategic industry leaders and associations. Prior to Autodesk Phil was a principal at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects where he managed many of the firm’s most complex commissions. He is the author of Architecture | Design | Data – Practice Competency in the Era of Computation (2018) and co-editor of Building (In) The Future: Recasting Labor in Architecture (2010 with Peggy Deamer), and consult, speaks and writes extensively on technology, practice and project delivery. He is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council and former Chair of the AIA National Contract Documents Committee.

Hixon Center Urban Conference