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Graduate School of Industrial Timber Construction

Finding research collaboration opportunities for mass timber construction

On a tour of the Hervanta Campus with George Berghorn, Davide Coccolini, Juha Franssila, Antti Kurvinen and Osku Torro.

Tampere University’s Faculty of Built Environment had the honor of hosting Dr. George H. Berghorn, Assistant Professor of Construction Management and Research Director for Mass Timber at Michigan State University’s School of Planning, Design and Construction. The trip to Tampere was conveniently before Berghorn and Tampere University researchers will attend the two-day WoodBuild Finland 2025 international seminar in Helsinki that is organized by Puuinfo.

Berghorn is not a stranger to Finland – he was on a trip arranged by Business Finland two years ago, but this was his first visit to Tampere. Knowledge Centre for Real estate Development Doctoral Researcher and member of the Graduate School of Industrial Timber Construction Juha Franssila, the Graduate School’s Doctoral Researcher Aku Aspila and Project Manager Jaakko Kinnunen met him before whilst attending Auburn University’s Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) conference and visiting Michigan State University during the same trip (read more about this here).

The tour concluded at the Tampere University of Technology Museum, which showcases iconic student overalls representing various guilds.

The discussions also included the Assistant Professor Antti Kurvinen, Professor Sami Pajunen and Doctoral Researcher Harri Sivu. During the day, we engaged in many constructive discussions about our respective studies, students and cultures.

We found some interesting intersections, where there could be opportunities for future research collaboration. For instance, the discussion showed a valuable opportunity to understand the US context and find ways to apply Finnish expertise in the mass timber market development.

“It was exciting to continue the work we began last fall in Michigan and dig into the details of the Finnish an US value chains for mass timber construction. I really value MSU’s collaboration with Tampere University’s Faculty of Built Environment and the strong friendship we have built between our programs”, Berghorn said.

The SPDC consists of four programs: Construction Management, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture and Urban & Regional Planning. It is jointly administered by the  College of Agriculture and Natural Resources  and the  College of Social Science and led by school director Dr. Jun-Hyun Kim. Berghorn has studied the feasibility of building deconstruction and material reuse, barriers to increasing mass timber building construction in the U.S., reuse of salvaged lumber in cross laminated timber, building science education, and electric utility training.

Find out more:

Juha Franssila
Doctoral Researcher, Tampere University
juha.franssila@tuni.fi

George H Berghorn
Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
berghorn@msu.edu

Text: Alisa Hakola, Reseacher, CoreLab, Tampere University

Keep reading

Published research: “Finnish mid-rise timber apartment buildings: Architectural, structural, and constructional features”

The construction of timber apartment buildings has been particularly common in mid-rise buildings, which are 3 to 8 stories high. This recent study that examined 55 constructed timber apartment buildings provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of timber construction in Finland. The study focused on the architectural and structural solutions used in Finland between 2018 and 2022 under the Land Use and Building Act, which came into effect on January 1, 2018. Special attention was given to the structural systems, construction methods, structural timber materials, and structure thicknesses used.