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On Thursday, November 7th, an excited group of developers, builders, researchers, and community members traveled to the A.A. "Red" Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Lab in Corvallis to view the first prototype of the Mass Ply Panel (MPP) Workforce Housing Project, designed by UO Architecture faculty members Judith Sheine and Mark Fretz with the experts at TallWood Design Institute.
The event captured a few candid impressions, as seen in the video retrospective here:
Although relatively small in size, this first MPP Workforce housing prototype has made already made a sizable impact. Hundreds of visitors have come to see the prototype firsthand over the last several months.
Most visitors express one of two similar thoughts: "It feels so much bigger than I thought it would" and "When can I move in?"
With Phase One complete and Phase Two on the horizon, it is important to outline the lessons learned so far and the potential impacts of what's to come. Read on to learn about the MPP Workforce Housing Project, project phases, and the effect such a small house has already made in the Oregon workforce housing space.
“Visitors have been enthusiastic about the prototype, and several have asked how they can get one. Hopefully this will lead to the production of prefabricated mass timber housing in Oregon.”
Judith Sheine
University of Oregon
Principal Investigator
“A computer model is one thing, but now you can walk through it and experience a new kind of house and a working concept for housing in Oregon.”
Mark Fretz
University of Oregon
Principal Investigator
The project goal is to develop a modular housing prototype that balances affordability, scalability, and sustainability. The prototype is designed to be used as “cottage clusters” to address “missing middle” housing. From the outset, the team prioritized a flat-pack design to streamline transport and assembly on infill sites, tailoring the approach to the unique properties of MPP.
The project follows a three-step process:
Phase 1 - Testing basic design, constructability, structural approach and livability
Phase 2 - Refine the design based on lessons learned and involve full fabrication and construction by a commercial contractor to develop more data on constructability and costs. A second prototype will be constructed outdoors for thermal, moisture, and acoustic performance testing.
Phase 3 - Deploy multiple units in a field pilot project to test their real-world viability
During Phase 1, the construction of the first prototype provided valuable insights, revealing opportunities for optimization in Phases 2 and 3.
Mass Ply Panels (MPP), pioneered in Oregon by Freres Engineered Wood, are being used nationwide to construct large, high-performance buildings, demonstrating their strength, versatility, and environmental benefits. MPP can be made from small-diameter restoration wood, transforming it into high-quality engineered panels that support sustainable forestry, reduce wildfire risks, and sequester carbon.
The prototype explores the innovative application of this mass timber product to address challenges in housing, forestry, and sustainability. By leveraging restoration wood to create MPP, the adoption of this construction method could transform forestry by creating high-value products from materials often seen as waste, reducing wildfire risks, and promoting sustainable forest management.
This project explores whether MPP can also be used to create modular homes—factory-built, affordable, scalable, resilient and desirable - that may be able to compete on cost with light-wood-frame houses. To investigate this potential, the team focused on the design and constructability of a 760 sq. ft., two-story house.
Phase 1 explored how to adapt MPP for modular housing, focusing on practical challenges like fitting stairs, doors, and mechanical systems into a compact layout with solid walls and working with an engineering team on the structural approach.
The workflow for the first prototype included some hand labor for several of the steel connections, requiring custom jigs, adding labor and time. However, the CNC workflow's inherent precision (within 1/16") allowed the structure to come together easily and quickly.
The initial decision that insulation and cladding would be included on the panels, necessitated steel connections on the interior, where they were exposed; in order to streamline both fabrication and construction, and to avoid so much exposed steel, the team decided that in the next phase, insulation and cladding would be field applied, simplifying and reducing the steel connections and their installation. This was one of the valuable lessons about balancing field work with prefabrication processes, that has informed Phase 2.
Phase 2 is built on the lessons of Phase 1, focusing on optimizing constructibility, time, cost and performance. This phase will be fully fabricated and constructed by a professional construction team outside, in the yard of the TDI Lab. This provides an opportunity to test how efficiently these prototypes can be built by the same kinds of teams that would construct them in the future.
Employing fewer, larger panels than in Phase 1, taking advantage of CNC machining with pre-located fasteners, and eliminating many steel connectors should simplify assembly by reducing on-site labor. While insulation and cladding will remain manual processes, which is typical in modular housing design, this phase will refine and validate the overall approach for building MPP panelized homes affordably, while retaining resiliency and design integrity.
The third phase of the project will deploy four panelized MPP units in Burns, Oregon, as part of a real-world field pilot. These units will be inhabited, providing an opportunity to test how they perform under actual living conditions. This phase is critical for evaluating not just the construction process, but also long-term factors like durability, energy efficiency, and user satisfaction.
The units will be assembled from fully CNC-cut panels to ensure precision and efficiency. Additional details, including insulation and cladding, window and door installation, and plumbing, mechanical and electrical services, will be completed onsite. This approach tests the flexibility and scalability of panelized housing systems while adapting to the realities of rural construction logistics.
By placing these units in a rural community, the project explores how MPP modular homes can address housing shortages in areas where affordability and scalability are essential. Feedback from contractors, tenants and data collected during this phase will help refine future designs and demonstrate the viability of MPP modular housing in a variety of contexts.
The insights gained from the prototyping and field pilot phases will help shape the future of MPP modular housing—whether through volumetric factory-built units, flat-pack with field assembly, or both.
What’s certain is that this project has already demonstrated the potential of MPP to redefine prefabricated housing, creating solutions that are sustainable, resilient, scalable, and adaptable for the housing challenges of tomorrow.
Do you have more questions about modular mass timber housing? Need support on your mass timber efforts? Looking to get connected with mass timber experts in the new year?
The MPP Workforce Housing project was funded by a 2022 US Economic Development Administration (EDA) Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) award (EDA BBBRC Grant #07-79-07906).
