Top 10 Timber Projects by Think Wood: What the Most Awarded Wooden Buildings of 2024 Teach Us About Excellence

How mass timber quietly became the world’s most respected structural material

The year 2024 marked a turning point for mass timber—not because of a single breakthrough, but because of how confidently, consistently, and creatively wood was used at the highest levels of architecture.

Think Wood’s Top 10 Projects of 2024 is more than a beauty parade of wooden buildings. It is a manifesto of what excellence now looks like in contemporary construction. From sports facilities to research laboratories and public landmarks, these buildings reveal the same core values:

• ✅ Structural honesty
• ✅ Climate ambition
• ✅ Human-centered design
• ✅ Scalable innovation

Let’s break down what these ten award-winning projects truly teach us about the future of building.

1️⃣ Victory Capital Performance Center — San Antonio, TX

Mass timber meets elite athletic performance

This is the largest professional sports training facility in the U.S. built primarily from mass timber—home of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.

Glulam beams and CLT panels support intense athletic use while creating a powerful biophilic environment. Athletes train beneath exposed timber ceilings that reduce stress, improve focus, and accelerate recovery.

Lesson:
👉 Mass timber can meet elite-performance standards—structurally and biologically.

2️⃣ Barry Mills Hall — Bowdoin College, Maine

An embodied-carbon masterclass

This student residence achieved a 75–80% reduction in embodied carbon compared to a standard steel structure.

Built with CLT and glulam, it proves that timber isn’t just “green enough”—it is the most effective carbon-reduction weapon available in new construction today.

Lesson:
👉 If your goal is cutting embodied carbon, nothing beats timber.

3️⃣ Kaiser Borsari Hall — Western Washington University

Energy neutrality meets ancient fire craft

This advanced STEM building targets operational energy neutrality while showcasing CLT floors, glulam columns, and thermally efficient wood framing.

Its exterior features shou sugi ban (charred cedar)—a 400-year-old fire technique repurposed for modern resilience.

Lesson:
👉 True excellence blends passive performance, cultural heritage, and modern engineering.

4️⃣ California College of the Arts Expansion — San Francisco, CA

Hybrid done right

Here, timber forms the entire perimeter structure, while the concrete core handles vertical circulation. CLT is used as both structure and finish—ceilings, walls, and stairs.

This is not compromise.
It is strategic optimization.

Lesson:
👉 Timber + concrete hybrids maximize performance without sacrificing carbon goals.

5️⃣ Idaho Central Credit Union Arena — Moscow, Idaho

Long-span timber at monumental scale

This arena features:

• 130-ft (40 m) timber roof span
• 850+ glulam beams
• Timber sourced entirely from local university forests

It reduced embodied carbon by an estimated ≈ 3,900 metric tons of CO₂ compared to steel and concrete.

Lesson:
👉 Timber enables monumental scale while supporting local supply chains.

6️⃣ Adimab Laboratory — Lebanon, New Hampshire

Timber enters high-containment biotech

A vibration-sensitive biotech lab built from mass timber proves that:

• Structural wood
• Precision engineering
• Controlled environments

Can coexist without compromise.

Lesson:
👉 Timber now belongs in the highest tier of technical infrastructure.

7️⃣ The Blake School Early Learning Center — Minnesota

When the structure becomes the teacher

Here, exposed trusses teach children geometry. Wood grain teaches natural science. The warm tactile interior supports emotional regulation and focus.

Lesson:
👉 Timber buildings can actively shape how humans learn—not just how they shelter.

8️⃣ Catalyst Building — Spokane, Washington

Living building + mass timber fusion

This ILFI-certified building integrates:

• Solar power
• Rainwater harvesting
• Composting systems

Directly into its timber structure.

Lesson:
👉 The world’s highest-performing buildings treat structure, water, and energy as one system.

9️⃣ T3 Minneapolis West — Minnesota

Speed as a sustainability weapon

This project achieved:

• 30% faster construction
• Entire floor plates assembled in under one week
• Standardized CLT panels + factory-finished elements

Lesson:
👉 Speed and sustainability don’t compete—they amplify each other.

🔟 Silo Residences — Port Moody, British Columbia

Timber powers the future of adaptive reuse

Historic concrete grain silos were transformed using:

• CLT floors
• Glulam stair systems
• Timber infill inside existing shells

Lesson:
👉 Timber is the perfect bridge between heritage and high performance.

🧠 What All 10 Projects Have in Common

Across every building, a clear pattern emerges:

• Climate-first thinking
• Human-focused interiors
• Structural transparency
• Replicable construction systems

These aren’t one-off experiments.

They are repeatable blueprints for the next 50 years of construction.

🏁 The Bigger Takeaway

Think Wood’s Top 10 of 2024 proves one thing beyond debate:

Mass timber is no longer the alternative.
It is rapidly becoming the default for excellence.

It delivers:

• Faster construction
• Lower emissions
• Healthier interiors
• Stronger regional economies

The future of construction isn’t just green.

👉 It’s wooden.