UA programs receive $250,000 for sustainable building prototypes
by October 25, 2016 2:28 pm 133 views
The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas Forest Resources Center in the UA System Division of Agriculture have received a nearly $250,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service to harvest regionally grown wood and build prototypes for campus buildings that are more environmentally sustainable.
The project is expected to last two years.
Timber products from an ongoing collaborative forest landscape restoration project in the Ozark National Forest will be used by the Fay Jones School to build a residential hall prototype the first year and a classroom/laboratory the second year — all using similar materials, methods and demonstrations, according to a UA press release.
Researchers will also evaluate sawmill residues from related timber processing for the manufacture of wood pellets for heating multistory residential housing.
“The project’s overall vision is of an innovative timber campus, sourced from local forests and sustainably designed and constructed,” according to the press release.
The grant is part of the Forest Service’s Wood Innovations program, highlighting the expanding interest and use of wood as a renewable energy source and an innovative building material while stimulating the use of surplus cultivation from National Forest System lands and other forested lands to promote forest health and generate rural jobs, according to the release.
The agency awarded $8.5 million in grants for the program this year, and the collaborative project between the Fay Jones School and the Arkansas Forest Resources Center is the only project in the state that is being funded by the program.
The project will also be the largest teaching and learning research project in the last 10 years at the university, according to the UA.
“For the school, these funds represent a significant step forward in our initiatives in advanced timber and wood design technologies and harness research objectives of value to the university and to the state, to the ‘hands-on’ teaching and learning ambitions of our faculty and students,” Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School, said in the press release. “In parallel, these funds are the stimulus for larger statewide economic development.”