The MassArt Department of Architecture invites you to join us for the next installment of the Tuesday Talks speaker series with Marc Rivard: Mass Timber Construction: Products, Performance and Design at 6pm EST on Tuesday, December 14th via Zoom.

Marc Rivard is a licensed Structural and Professional Engineer in California, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and received his BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UMass Amherst. Prior to WoodWorks, he was a Senior Structural Engineer involved primarily with seismic design and analysis of new and existing buildings. Marc has experience providing structural calculations, plans, specifications, construction administration and structural plan review services for a wide range of building types, including multi-family/mixed-use, education, commercial, office, institutional, and military. 

Due to their high strength, dimensional stability and positive environmental performance, mass timber is quickly becoming the material of choice for sustainably-minded designers. This presentation is a detailed look at the variety available, including glue-laminated timber (glulam), cross laminated timber (CLT), nail laminated timber (NLT), heavy timber decking, and other engineered and composite systems. Applications for the use of these products under modern building codes will be discussed, and some examples of their use in the U.S. Mass Timber’s ability to act as both structure and exposed finish, performance as part of an assembly, and design objectives related to structure, fire resistance, acoustics, and energy efficiency. Other topics will include detailing and construction best practices, lessons learned from completed projects and trends for the increased use of mass timber products in the future.

The Tuesday Talks series was first established in 2008 by MassArt's Architecture program. This visiting lecture series brings a wide range of design professionals who are engaged in creative endeavors to our community of students, staff, faculty and guests.