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MSU's Summit House — a 12-story student housing tower in downtown Denver — is the tallest mass timber building in Colorado. When the program grew from a four-story office building to a 12-story residential tower, conventional wisdom said switch to concrete. This team asked a different question: not whether timber would work, but how to make it work. They landed within roughly a quarter percent of concrete on cost. In this panel, the developer, architect, engineer, and general contractor behind Summit House break down how they got there.
What You'll Learn
- How to lead with structural logic on a timber project — using a tight, repeatable column grid to drive unit layout, floor-to-floor height, and fabrication efficiency, rather than forcing timber to fit a predetermined plan.
- Why exposed mass timber is a forcing function for coordination — resolving MEP routing, penetrations, and connection detailing upstream.
- How to evaluate timber's true cost — why the premium narrative is outdated when a project is designed and executed specifically for timber
- Strategies for fast, durable delivery — capturing erection speed under real urban logistics constraints.
- How material choice ties to client outcomes — connecting timber to student wellbeing, retention, and the community spaces the building was designed around.
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