Mass Timber Competition

Building Sustainable Schools – Competition is Paused

The 2025 Mass Timber Competition: Building Sustainable Schools is currently paused.

Until further guidance is provided by the competition co-funder, the USDA Forest Service, the 2025 Mass Timber Competition has been paused. Competition entrants have been notified of the pause and will be contacted as future updates become available. The SLB will continue to monitor this situation and reserves the right to make additional changes to the status of the competition in the future.

Building to Net-Zero Carbon

This competition program selected several winners in 2022 and 2023.

Designed to expand the use of mass timber in the United States, the 2022 and 2023 Mass Timber Competition: Building to Net-Zero Carbon programs awarded several projects that highlight mass timber’s application, practicality, commercial viability, and ability to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment. The Competition is intended to help expand the use of mass timber building solutions and support increased employment in advanced wood products design, engineering, construction, supply chain, and manufacturing sectors.

The SLB and USDA fund the competition. The funding supports costs associated with the use of mass timber or mass timber hybrid building systems and construction. Funding also helps project teams overcome barriers to the use of a new building material and system, most notably the costs of analyzing design and engineering alternatives and verifying that these solutions comply with applicable code(s).

Recent Updates

• Evergreen Charter School: Construction is underway and anticipated to be completed by the Summer of 2025. The project team has also begun a biophilia study to assess the positive impact of exposed wood on occupants.
• Return to Form: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of the project was the first in a series examining the embodied carbon, speed, and cost of mass timber versus other building systems. The study compares Return to Form, a 12-story, 84-unit residential building designed with mass timber, to functionally equivalent cold-formed steel (CFS) and concrete alternatives. Construction is expected to begin in the Spring of 2025.
• Up@310 Lofts: To celebrate the start of construction, the team held a “hat tipping” ceremony in March, tipping the team’s hard hats to the supporters who made the project a success.  In addition to the celebratory ceremony, architect Randall Walter, Principal of Lignin Group, spoke in an SLB-sponsored webinar about mass timber overbuild projects. Construction is expected to end in April 2025.

2023 Competition Recap

In October 2023, the SLB and USDA Forest Service announced five winners of the 2023 Mass Timber Competition. The winning projects received funds totaling $2.2 million to demonstrate mass timber’s applications in architectural design and highlight its significant role in reducing the carbon footprint of the built environment. A blog post profiling the five winners can be found on Think Wood.

2022 Competition Recap and Project Updates

In June 2022, the SLB and USDA Forest Service announced the winners of the first competition. Six projects were chosen for their ability to demonstrate mass timber’s innovative, scalable applications in architectural design and to highlight its significant role in reducing the built environment’s carbon footprint. The winning projects, which shared $2 million in total funding, are listed below. A blog post profiling the winners can be found on Think Wood.

Each project pledges to use wood sourced from sustainably managed forests, and many prioritize mass timber that is both domestically harvested and manufactured. Lessons from these projects will be shared with the broader design and construction communities to support project development and replication, including research about cost analyses and life-cycle assessments.