The RW Kern Center’s Minimalist Timber Structure

By Timothy Schuler
ARCHITECT Magazine
January 3, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

The R.W. Kern Center at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., was designed by Cambridge, Mass., firm Bruner/Cott & Associates to be “rooted in its place,” says principal Jason Jewhurst, AIA. …The Kern Center features a half-dozen wood species, chosen specifically to cohere within the space: black spruce for the glulam; ash and birch for the doors; salvaged red oak for the flooring and monumental stair; pine for the ceiling; and cedar for the exterior. Materials and building systems are left exposed, inspired by the Living Building Challenge’s (LBC’s) push for material transparency. … Instead of uniformly sized beams, Bruner/Cott worked with Montreal-based glulam supplier Nordic Structures, local fabricator Bensonwood, and Newton, Mass.–based structural engineering firm Foley Buhl Roberts & Associates to determine the smallest possible size of each member. 

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