Page 13 - spaces4learning, January/February 2020

“WHEN WE TAKE PEOPLE ON TOURS, YOU CAN SEE PEOPLE TOUCHING, FEELING AND EVEN SMELLING THE WOOD,” LEERS ADDS. “IT APPEALS TO ALL THE SENSES.”
Leers Weinzapfel Principal Tom Chung. “And there’s so little waste. On a concrete and steel building, you would see dumpsters and dumpsters. With this building, there were far fewer.”
The motivation to build Adohi with mass timber was also based on wood’s psychological impact. “For me, the transformation here is the power and impact this approach can have on students every day,” says Modus Studio Principal Chris Baribeau, noting how the building is not only framed with cross-laminated timber, as seen in its exposed wood ceilings and columns, but also that its interior spaces are clad with native Arkansas cypress. “The wood you get throughout the interiors here just evokes an emotional, sensory response,” Baribeau adds. “You want to touch it, you want to feel it.”
Building + Landscape
Occupying a long, partially wooded strip of land and taking its name from the Cherokee word meaning “woods,” Adohi Hall is situated downhill from the university’s main quad and buildings. Once a student here, Baribeau recalls rarely coming to this corner of campus. “If we were going to invite students to make this journey \[down the hill\], it needed to be special,” he explains. The univer- sity concurred, viewing this potential challenge as an opportunity for a compelling new anchor. “We wanted the building to ground that entrance into campus and become a gateway,” explains Florence Johnson, the university’s assistant vice chancellor for student housing.
The design collaborative, including Philadelphia landscape architecture firm OLIN, endeavored
Photos © Modus Studio
was interested in timber as an economic driver for Arkansas, so it was kind of a confluence,” says Leers.
Building Adohi Hall out of cross-laminated timber — an engineered product (imagine plywood, but made with layers of 2x4 lumber) that first became popular in Europe and is stronger and more fire-resistant than traditional wood — allowed for a streamlined construction process. Framing with CLT makes building more like erecting a prefabricat- ed structure. Whole segments of walls and flooring arrive at a construction site ready to be bolted into place. “The con- tractors could see how fast this went up compared to con- crete and steel. There were often fewer than 10 people with a crane just lifting the panels up and into place,” explains
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