BCT/BMATWT Alumni Reception in June with Architecture and LARP: “The Integrated Design Building”

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
Join fellow alumni and friends of the Building and Construction Technology program (formerly Building Materials and Wood Technology – BMATWT) and our friends in Architecture and Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning (LARP) on Saturday, June 6 at 2 pm during Alumni Weekend to hear about plans for our new building and current developments in our program. Light refreshments will be provided. The event will take place in the Studio Arts Building, Second Floor Atrium. All are welcome. No cost to attend. Please register at the following link: http://umassalumni.com/s/1640/alumni/interior-2col.aspx?sid=1640&gid=2&pgid=1789&content_id=1465 For more information about Alumni Weekend: http://umassalumni.com/AlumniWeekend You can also download this event to your calendar here: https://www.umass.edu/bct/event/bct-architecture-and-larp-alumni-reception-the-integrated-design-building/...
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2014 BCT Alumni & Friends Newsletter: Season’s Greetings!

2014 BCT Alumni & Friends Newsletter: Season’s Greetings!

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
A Message from the BCT Program Director As we conclude another successful semester in the BCT program, we are very proud to now have close to 200 undergraduate students and 10 graduate students including several PhDs. This year brought some changes to our program: With Dave Damery retiring (more on that below), I have taken over as program director. We also have a new faculty member, Dr. Ho-Sung Kim (see also below) and we will embark on a search for a replacement for Dave Damery soon. We are also very excited about a new building that will soon be our home - the “Integrated Design Building”. This state-of-the-art building will encompass many sustainable features (like an engineered wood structure) and will offer us better spaces for teaching, collaboration, labs, shops, and computer facilities. More on this below. If you haven’t done so yet, I would encourage you to join the new BCT student and alumni LinkedIn group. It is a great way to stay...
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BCT’s Peggi Clouston Speaks About “Emerging Technologies in Wood and Bio-Based Building Products”

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
The concluding talk of this semester's impromptu BCT lecture series “Building with Wood” was delivered November 21 by our very own Dr. Peggi Clouston. After covering the many benefits of wood and other bio-based materials (such as bamboo), she illustrated several of her research projects that featured mainly composite applications of these materials in structures. Her talk followed Nic Clark from KLH. Dr. Clouston teaches courses in structural wood design, material mechanics and bio-based composites to students of construction technology, architecture, and engineering. Her research focuses on modeling and characterizing the probabilistic mechanical behavior of structural bio-based composite materials as well as innovative wood products and systems. Links: Presentation (available soon) Bio-Based Building website Dr. Clouston's faculty page ...
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Nic Clark of KLH Speaks About Cross-Laminated Timber Buildings

Nic Clark of KLH Speaks About Cross-Laminated Timber Buildings

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
Nic Clark, Managing Director of KLH UK joined BCT on October 15 to present KLH's many projects worldwide in which they successfully used a new wood-based product, cross-laminated timber (CLT). Examples ranged from lowrise schools to residential buildings up to ten stories high. This lecture was the second installment in this semester's impromptu BCT lecture series “Building with Wood”, following Robert Malczyk of Equilibrium Consulting. KLH is the worldwide market-leading manufacturer of large-format glued laminated timber elements, especially Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) panel products. KLH and its subsidiary KLH UK has been involved in the construction of thousands of wood buildings, including the 8-story Stadthaus in London, UK and a recent 10-story apartment building in Melbourne, Australia. Links: KLH presentation KLH UK website KLH Austria website ...
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Weil and Clouston Participate in NSF Grant to Fund Sustainable Agriculture, Clean Energy Partnership with HCC, Hampshire

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
The National Science Foundation has awarded an $810,000 grant to Holyoke Community College, in partnership with UMass Amherst and Hampshire College, to create collaborative programs combining clean energy studies with sustainable agriculture and share new resources that will benefit students at all three schools. The grant supports a series of joint courses, the first of which will begin in the summer of 2015. Professors Peggi Clouston and Ben Weil of the Environental Conservation Department are working with John Gerber, professor of sustainable food and farming in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, to create course content relating to agricultural structures, energy efficiency, and on-farm renewable energy. The grant will also fund new clean energy and agriculture equipment that will be used by students and researchers from all three schools, including a micro-farm greenhouse demonstration and training facility at the Agricultural Learning Center on North Pleasant Street. The micro-farm greenhouse demonstration and training facility will be managed by Amanda Brown and the UMass student...
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