The University of Michigan celebrated the grand opening of its new College of Pharmacy building last Friday, a six-story, 142,000-square-foot facility that its architects say is now the tallest mass timber research building in the world. The ceremony capped years of delayed construction and consolidated a program that had been scattered across seven separate buildings on campus. The building features sustainable design concepts throughout its six stories. Designed by RDG Planning & Design, the structure is the first mass timber building on U-M’s campus, using engineered wood in place of much of the steel typically found in large research facilities. …According to RDG, the hybrid mass timber structure achieved a 59% reduction in embodied carbon compared to a traditional steel building, while the design projects a 62.3% cut in energy costs as the facility pursues LEED Gold certification.