Always looking for opportunities to be at the forefront of innovation, the University of Arkansas will be the first university in the United States to build a dorm using cross-laminated timber as the primary material. 

What is cross-laminated timber? It’s a building material made from layers of lumber boards stacked, glued and pressed together into solid panels and beams. It’s commonly used in Europe and is beginning to gain popularity in the United States.

The project has the potential to mean great things for Arkansas’s timber and forest products industry. The building will demonstrate a new way to use engineered timber and could encourage cross-laminated timber manufacturing in the state as it becomes an in-demand building material. 

With more than 200,000 square feet of mixed-use space, Stadium Drive Residence Hall in Fayetteville will include 368 dorm rooms, classroom and gallery spaces, music practice rooms, performance halls and more. Trees harvested from the project site will be used to make cabinets, furniture and finishes for the unique residence hall.

According to University of Arkansas officials, 
The Stadium Drive Residence Hall project integrates several University of Arkansas priorities, including student success, innovative teaching and learning, creating a more collaborative campus and advancing the university’s land-grant and flagship mission of service to the state by leading an effort that demonstrates the potential impact that mass timber design and construction can have on the future of the Arkansas timber industry and the state’s economic development.

The endeavor is a collaborative effort engaging University of Arkansas Housing, Facilities Management and Planning, the J. William Fullbright College of Arts and Sciences, and the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.