Mass Timber + Hospitality: What’s New?

Last summer, SERA Principal in the Hospitality Studio Gary Golla convened a research group to look at mass timber construction in the hotel industry.

Mass timber buildings tend to be thought of as beautiful, with warm, welcoming spaces and distinct sustainability advantages, but that doesn’t mean they’re a perfect fit for every use or building type. For hospitality projects in particular, designers have to consider potential trade-offs like sound buffering between rooms and the up-front cost of construction, and issues like these have made mass timber more of a question than an obvious solution for hotel developers.

Gary’s group included architects and interior designers, engineers, and an executive from a leading brand. Together, they investigated how mass timber might fit best with the hospitality industry. They did deep dives on design opportunities, the construction process, operations, and guest experience, and crafted first-person accounts to illustrate each of these.

Now, several months later, members of that group reconnect to talk about what they learned from the project and what they’ve seen in the industry since then.

Catch up on the subject in this in-depth yet very accessible podcast covering how mass timber works, what it does well, and what you might expect to see as a traveler in the next few years. Joining Gary is Tom Kostelecky, Design Director at Marriott International, and Josh Cabot, a project architect and SERA’s go-to resource on all things mass timber.