PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Rural–Urban Timber Economies: Hardwood CLT for Scalable Affordable Housing

Rural–Urban Timber Economies: Hardwood CLT for Scalable Affordable Housing
Project Lead: Jared Abraham, Special Faculty in Architectural Design, Carnegie Mellon Architecture
Project Team: Brad Groff, Adjunct Faculty; Juney Lee, T. David Fitz-Gibbon Assistant Professor of Architecture & Regenerative Structures Laboratory Director

This project investigates the structural, economic, and social potential of Pennsylvania-sourced hardwood — particularly yellow poplar — for use in mass timber affordable housing across Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and other legacy urban neighborhoods. Led by CM—A faculty with support from partners including PSEIF, PSELT, Crosswoods, Arup, Equilibrium, and CHM Fire Consultants, the project engages two to three CMU students over one summer and semester to document statewide hardwood resources, evaluate structural performance, and publish a design and feasibility toolkit.

Through demonstration housing projects (87 units across four sites), digital design-to-build integration, workforce upskilling, and supply-chain activation, the research develops a replicable model for hardwood mass-timber infill housing.

The work directly addresses CM—A’s three pedagogical challenges:

• Climate change is engaged through decarbonization research, substituting renewable hardwood mass timber for carbon-intensive concrete and steel, advancing ecological forest management and quantifying embodied-carbon reductions.
• Social justice is addressed through researching the opportunity for the creation of permanently affordable housing, reinvestment in disinvested neighborhoods, rural-urban economic linkage, and workforce opportunities for small contractors and mills in under-resourced communities.
• The project also advances AI-adjacent computational design by deploying digital platforms that connect standing timber inventories to modular production workflows and structural dimensional limitation testing.

The project’s methods include resource assessment, structural and fire-performance analysis, economic and market feasibility studies, and documentation of prototype construction. Outcomes will include a publicly disseminated research publication, a market analysis report, a design toolkit, and built demonstration projects. The project will leverage CMU’s Regenerative Structures Laboratory (RSL), CM—A faculty expertise in timber design, and student research capacity. This work will position the team for continued leadership in mass timber innovation and affordable housing delivery in Pennsylvania.

Image: Poplar Forest, Drazen Nesic CC0.