Starting with a historical overview, Daniel Mason, AIA and Project Architect at PYATOK will give a presentation of the building industries’ past efforts to develop and deploy prefabricated building systems in mid-rise housing and the available new technologies that we are seeing in that market today. Discussion will then shift to two distinct emerging technologies: mass timber/CLT and Prescient’s prefabricated steel system.

Mass Timber Specialist Alese Ashuckian at Structurlam will present a short lecture on CrossLam CLT innovation and Lisa Podesto at Lendlease will discuss her efforts to develop and obtain approvals for mass timber/CLT buildings in the US.

Erin Hamilton, AIA, Director of Architecture and Design at Prescient Co. will provide a technical overview of Prescient’s prefabricated steel system and Derek Veerkamp, Vice President at The Michaels Organization will speak about his work in developing housing projects using Prescient and the financial incentives of prefabrication.

Following the presentations, Kim Suczynski Smith, AIA and Senior Associate at PYATOK will facilitate a panel discussion with open audience participation. The discussion will explore potential questions including: What innovations are likely to take a larger market hold? What challenges do we create from a funding and project delivery standpoint in using new techniques? What are the social and environmental implications of emerging technologies? What are the cost and time saving implications?

Learning Objectives

1. Understand historical context of pre-fabricated building systems in mid-rise housing.
2. Evaluate the use of mass timber/CLT and Prescient’s steel prefabricated construction technologies for use in mid-rise housing.
3. Describe the challenges of funding and implementing prefabricated building technologies.
4. Understand the approval process challenges for mass timber/CLT and steel prefabricated technologies.

Panelists

Kim Suczynski Smith, AIA, PYATOK
Moderator

Kim is a Senior Associate for PYATOK and offers her instinctive attention to detail and problem solving to the firm. She uses a multi-disciplinary approach to her practice, making the most out of her dual degrees in City Planning and Architecture and her strong interest in education. In addition to her work at PYATOK, Kim teaches planning studios and leads the embARC Summer Design Academy, an intensive four-week summer design academy for high school students, at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Alese Ashuckian, Structurlam
Mass Timber Specialist

Alese is a Mass Timber Specialist with Structurlam as a Mass Timber Specialist based in Portland, OR, where she promotes cross laminated timber and glulam in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to joining Structurlam, she was an Engineered Wood Specialist for APA and worked as a structural engineer.

Daniel Mason, AIA, PYATOK
Prefabricated technologies overview

Daniel is a Project Architect at Pyatok with over 15 years of experience in a variety of architectural typologies including educational facilities, restaurants, and museums, as well as single family and multifamily housing. He has worked in New England and the Bay Area on projects from the early design phases through construction. Daniel is passionate about providing high quality architectural design for all users, regardless of socio-economic background. Multi-family housing projects allow for countless design permutations and Daniel enjoys the constantly evolving process of design as an opportunity to work iteratively and develop unique solutions to every design challenge.

Lisa Podesto, Lendlease
Mass timber/CLT developer / contractor

In her role as Lendlease’s Timber Specialist, Lisa is responsible for developing and executing a regional strategic marketing and development plan pertaining to mass timber solutions for the entire US. She serves as the in-house timber material specialist and design expert and leads West Coast timber construction strategy. She consults with our clients on mass timber solutions, technologies and approvals.

Erin Hamilton, AIA, Prescient Co.
Prefabricated steel system manufacturer

Erin Hamilton is the National Technical Director at Prescient Co, a building technologies company seeking to revolutionize the building environment through earlier design integration and prefabrication of light gauge and structural steel framed buildings. A licensed architect since 2012, Erin relocated from the east coast to Denver as one of Prescient’s first employees. Prescient grew from 7 employees in 2012 to over 300 today. While helping to build the design and global technology team, Erin began working with architects and jurisdictions throughout the country, helping them to learn and adopt the Prescient system. She works with UL, ICC, and other code entities, constantly improving and growing Prescient’s code compliance. Erin also acts as the design liaison to Prescient’s internal R&D team to ensure that new product offerings are design friendly and code compliant. In her free time, Erin enjoys hiking and traveling the world.

Derek Veerkamp, The Michaels Organization
Prefabricated steel system developer / owner

Mr. Veerkamp brings over 20 years of specialization in large-scale Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in student, military, and conventional housing developments. His experience includes project concept and sourcing, financial modeling, entitlements, finance, design, construction, property operations, asset management, and sale. He has developed 9,447 on-campus beds and 25,202 multi-family units.