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Inside a MINKA: wood walls and ceiling, with a long window onto the trees.
Mass timber

Nature’s best made better.

Mass timber panels bring a new level of precision and quality to housing.

What it is

Large engineered wood panels, paired with engineered wood columns and beams.

Mass timber is a family of products rather than a single one. A Holden Co. home is built around two of them: cross-laminated timber for the floors, walls and roof, and glulam for the frame that carries them.

Cross-laminated timber (CLT)

Layers of solid wood, each laid across the last.

CLT is made from layers of solid sawn lumber, set at right angles to one another and glued into a single structural panel. Most panels have three, five or seven layers.

Crossing the grain is what makes CLT strong and stable in both directions, so one product can serve as a floor, a wall or a roof. Each panel is made to order and cut in the factory, with openings for doors and windows already in place, then delivered and installed in a planned sequence.

Layers
Typically 3, 5 or 7, at right angles
Typical panel
4 to 12 ft wide, 16 to 60 ft long (per WoodWorks; varies by manufacturer)
Used for
Floors, walls and roofs
Standard
ANSI/APA PRG 320

In a Holden Co. home

  • CLT floor panels
  • CLT wall panels
  • CLT roof panels
Glued laminated timber (glulam)

Lumber, layered with the grain, made into a frame.

Glulam is made by stacking solid sawn lumber with the grain running the same way and bonding the layers with adhesive. Where CLT makes the surfaces, glulam makes the frame: the columns and beams the panels bear on.

Most glulam is straight, though it can also be made curved, tapered or arched.

Layers
Lumber laminations, grain parallel
Typical size
6 to 72 in deep, up to 100 ft long (per WoodWorks)
Used for
Columns, beams and other framing
Standard
ANSI A190.1

In a Holden Co. home

  • Glulam columns
  • Glulam beams, primary and secondary
  • Glulam rim joist and floor structure
See how we buildDesign your MINKA

Sources and thanks

Product information on this page comes from WoodWorks, the Wood Products Council, and its guide What is mass timber? Our thanks to WoodWorks for making it freely available. Details are checked against the sources below.