The John W. Olver Design Building opened in 2017 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Leers Weinzapfel Associates of Boston designed it. It is named for John W. Olver, a former congressman and UMass chemistry professor, and it stands on a former parking lot.
The 87,000-square-foot (8,100-square-meter) building is built of cross-laminated timber, glue-laminated columns and a wood truss system. UMass calls it the most technologically advanced cross-laminated timber building in the country. A copper-anodized aluminum rain screen shields the wood, and the project is LEED Gold.
A sky-lit central commons has stepped seating and an open timber stair. The building houses the Department of Architecture, the Building and Construction Technology program and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. It won an AIA Architecture Award in 2023.
This building has no Wikipedia article. Facts come from UMass Amherst, AIA.
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