The International Mass Timber Conference Returns to Oregon Convention Center for 2024 Edition ↗
Architectural Record
2024 Makers’ KUbe Pavilion at the International Mass Timber Conference
Project facts
- Event
- International Mass Timber Conference 2024
- Design collaboration
- StructureCraft / BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
- Venue
- Oregon Convention Center
- Location
- Portland, OR, USA
- Status
- Completed 2024
- Our involvement
- Structural design, full-scale prototyping, digital modelling, fabrication and erection.
Photography & imagery
- Completed photography
- StructureCraft
- Construction photography
- © Graham Handford
Overview
At the 2024 International Mass Timber Conference, StructureCraft and BIG brought a piece of the future Makers' KUbe building to full scale. The pavilion reproduced one bay of the University of Kansas project's exterior glulam diagrid, including its architecturally expressive Hero Node and a portion of the second-floor plate. Built inside StructureCraft's shop and reassembled in Portland, it turned an ambitious structural idea into something conference visitors could walk around, inspect and touch.
This pavilion is a full-scale prototype for the permanent Makers’ KUbe building at the University of Kansas.
A building-scale question, tested at full scale
Makers' KUbe was conceived as a showcase for timber tectonics, traditional joinery and digitally enabled fabrication. The conference pavilion isolated one of the building's hardest problems: the point where multiple glulam braces, beams and columns converge within the exterior Mega-X frame. Reproducing a full bay made it possible to test the architectural proportions, connection geometry and erection sequence together, rather than treating the node as a small material sample.
All-wood force transfer
The Hero Node uses interlocking saw-tooth geometry and timber dowels to transfer both tension and compression between the glulam members. No steel connection plates, bolts or engineered timber screws are used in the connection concept. Each surface therefore had to be modelled and fabricated precisely enough to engage its neighbour as the frame came together. Traditional joinery supplied the principle; structural analysis and CNC fabrication made it repeatable at contemporary mass-timber scale.
From digital model to full-scale assembly
StructureCraft developed the structural model in Branch 3D and carried the geometry directly into detailing and fabrication. The glulam diagrid and CLT floor portion were pre-assembled in our Abbotsford shop, then shipped to Portland and erected at the conference. Presented with BIG's architectural model and a connection that visitors could take apart and reassemble, the pavilion compressed the full design-to-construction process into one exhibition: concept, force flow, joinery, fabrication and assembly were all visible at once.
Gallery
In the press
Makers' KUbe case study ↗
2025 International Mass Timber Report
BIG and BNIM unveil Makers’ KUbe, a new diagrid structure made of mass timber for the University of Kansas ↗
The Architect’s Newspaper · April 22, 2024
