PSU Opened New Mass-Timber Art School Building
The 107,000-square-foot facility unites three academic departments under one roof on the university campus.
Updated on Oct. 5, 2026 in Higher Education
Live Poll
Do you support the use of mass-timber for new local academic and public buildings?
Portland State University students and faculty have gained a new home with the opening of the four-story Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design. The facility consolidates three previously dispersed academic departments into a single campus hub.
Why it matters
The project serves as a major infrastructure shift for the university, moving from scattered administrative locations to a unified site. It also marks a significant adoption of sustainable mass-timber construction on a large institutional scale in Portland.
The new building encompasses 107,000 square feet across four stories. The project features a 25-foot wide sliding glass door as its primary connection to the outdoors, though the total cost of the facility was not disclosed.
The players
Portland State University
The public research university that opened the new mass-timber facility on its campus.
Lever Architecture
The 17-year-old firm that designed the new school building.
Timberlab
A mass-timber manufacturer scheduled to open a new facility later this year.
The details
Designed by Lever Architecture, the building utilizes a glulam column-and-beam system and cross-laminated timber floor panels. More than half of the Douglas fir glulam used in the structure was sourced from tribally owned forests. The assembly relied on CNC fabrication and traditional mortise-and-tenon techniques to transform the site, which formerly functioned as a parking lot and skate park.
Timeline
The Jordan Schnitzer School building opened during the 2026 academic year.
Timberlab's new CLT-manufacturing facility is scheduled to open later this year.
Beyond the Bridges
The project represents the first mass-timber building at Portland State University, expanding the use of cross-laminated timber in the city. This follows a broader trend of utilizing regional timber for urban development projects.
Students and faculty in the art, art history, and design programs will now conduct their studies in the new four-story building. Neighbors and commuters near the university can see the new structure as a permanent change to the former parking lot site.
The takeaway
The building stands as a test case for large-scale mass-timber construction on a public university campus. Keep an eye on local architectural journals or university reports to see how the timber performance compares to traditional building methods over the coming years.
Further reading
You can find more updates on campus development and local academic news in our Higher Education section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Architecturalrecord.
Live Poll
Do you support the use of mass-timber for new local academic and public buildings?
