IHBE Faculty Research

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Browsing IHBE Faculty Research by Subject "affordable housing"

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    Mass Timber Panelized Workforce Housing in Oregon, U.S.
    (Institute for Health in the Built Environment, University of Oregon, 2023) Sheine, Judith; Fretz, Mark; O'Halloran, Simone; Gershfeld, Mikhail; Stenson, Jason
    Mass timber panel production came to the United States after developments in Europe and Canada; the first domestic structural cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels were manufactured by DR Johnson Wood Innovations in Riddle, Oregon in 2015. With its history of timber product manufacture, the state has embraced this new material for its potential for economic development in the U.S. As in many places in the U.S., Oregon has a critical shortage of affordable housing and it has been challenging to find paths for mass timber to enter this market where light-wood-frame construction is dominant. In 2018, Freres Engineered Wood, working with the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration between the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, developed a new product: mass plywood panels (MPP). This product provides a possibility for constructing single-family houses economically with mass timber using thin panels derived from small diameter logs. This paper describes the research leading to a pilot project utilizing MPP for workforce housing in Milwaukie, Oregon.
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    Open Home Project: Designing Modular Housing and Landscapes for Resilient Communities
    (Institute for Health in the Built Environment, University of Oregon, 2020) Ward, Paul; Castro, Ivan; Fiorelli, Thomas; Fretz, Mark; Ko, Yekang; Lee, Junhak; Russel, Kory; da Silva Correa Leite, Carolina; Van Den Wymelenberg, Kevin
    Affordable, energy efficient, and healthy housing is a key component of individual, community, and planetary resilience and is increasingly scarce in both rural and urban regions on the West Coast of the US and many other locations globally. To address this issue, we assembled a diverse team including designers, manufacturers, researchers, economic and legal experts, community organizers, and students from many fields to develop complementary systems for modular, affordable housing and supportive site enhancements. By pursuing an ‘open-source’ design process, our research and concepts are shared freely to engage and welcome input from a broad spectrum of perspectives. Our goal is to leverage disruptive new technologies like mass-timber panelized digital manufacturing, distributed energy production/storage, and water reclamation micro-grids to support systems-based approaches to creating affordable housing and resilient communities. Our flexible modular solution is rapidly deployable, reconfigurable, and relocatable. It includes on-board photovoltaic arrays and battery storage and can be positioned as a standalone accessory dwelling unit or as a cluster community. We propose service-based and on-site approaches to water and waste treatment in response to different configurations and contexts. Each unit provides much-needed housing while reinforcing the local utility grid and providing essential services during grid-disrupting events. This paper documents initial results of ongoing research, financial and sociopolitical implementation plans, and site improvement and modular housing system concepts. Moreover, we invite the ACEEE community to contribute their expertise as part of open source knowledge network.