About the author  ⁄ David J. Odeh, P.E.

David J. Odeh is a Principal with Odeh Engineers, Inc. (odehdj@odehengineers.com)

A new mass timber concert hall takes shape in massachusetts 

The bucolic farmlands of eastern Massachusetts play host to a new music education and performance facility known as Groton Hill Music Center. Its owners, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1985, describe their new home as a “126,000-square-foot love letter to sound,” with studio classrooms for students of all ages, an orchestral rehearsal space, a 300-seat recital hall for soloists and small ensembles, and a grand 1000-seat concert hall that opens to view for a 500-seat lawn audience that is set in the surrounding outdoor fields in during supportive weather.

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In 2017, Brown University embarked on a multi-phase program to develop a new Performing Arts Center (PAC) at the heart of its campus on the east side of Providence, Rhode Island. The historic fabric of the neighborhood, with its interwoven streets and buildings of various types and vintage, creates both opportunities and challenges for the construction of new, modern facilities. In particular, the PAC would require a large open site for its planned state-of-the-art concert hall.
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Rhode Island School of Design

A new six-story student residence hall in Providence, Rhode Island, incorporates exposed cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels supported by steel framing. By using this structural system in a dormitory for the first time in New England, an Integrated Project Delivery team achieved the client’s lofty goals of beautiful design, environmental sustainability, and an aggressive construction schedule. The erector exceeded all expectations by completing the superstructure construction in under three weeks.

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The extraordinary devastation left by storms, earthquakes, and wildfires in 2017 dominated the news media for months. Many of our colleagues around the globe were directly affected by these events but still rose to the challenge by volunteering as emergency responders or by joining teams to study and report on lessons learned. Whether impacted or not, structural engineers keep the public safe from disasters every day.
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2016 will mark many key milestones for our profession, and will have many exciting opportunities to shape our future.

As we enter this important time in the history of structural engineering, let’s not forget that our greatest achievements and innovations always come when we work together in teams. Structural engineers often cite inspiration from other fields, such as physics, chemistry, or art, when they develop a novel idea or solution to an important problem.

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What inspired you to become a structural engineer? For me, it was a fascination with the great buildings of history, like the Parthenon and the Eiffel Tower, and the ingenuity and creativity of the civilizations that built them. Starting with that early inspiration, I have always been driven by a desire to create new structures that have a positive impact on the way people live.
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