UTSA Alum Alex Arrunada shows how Timberlyne manufactures Mass Timber beams.
First-year graduate students from UTSA’s School of Architecture + Planning visited Timberlyne’s facility in Boerne, Texas to learn about Mass Timber and Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) production. UTSA alumni Alejandro Arrunada–Timberlyne’s Director of Innovation–traced the process all the way from material acquisition to site installation. Fellow UTSA alums Yanely Mireles and Tristan Doebler also stopped by to describe their roles as Timberlyne designers.
This semester Associate Professor Ian Caine’s MArch studio is exploring the application of modular, prefabricated construction to multifamily housing in San Antonio. Each of the students will design one of four typologies–a Bar, Court, Tower, or Townhouse–while leveraging Mass Timber and CLT systems. The larger goal of the studio is to explore how emerging modular construction technologies can address pervasive housing shortages in San Antonio. San Antonio is one of the ten fastest growing cities in the United States, with an annual expansion rate that exceeds 2%. Prefabricated and modular housing solutions have enormous potential in a market where demand continues to outstrip supply, and developers deliver only 500 affordable units each year.