The Lark Hotel Addition

Designers of this hotel addition used an efficient mass timber building system to meet the project’s sustainability goals and increase the speed erection while minimizing disruption to guests during construction. The four-story structure added 29 guest rooms, a lobby and coffee lounge to the existing hotel, which was itself an award-winning 2014 renovation of an abandoned two-story 1960s motor lodge. The energy-efficient building envelope, made possible with wood’s natural insulating properties and tight-fitting wood components, ensures a warm and comfortable interior. Walls were constructed using cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, glulam columns and conventional wood framing. Exposed CLT ceilings and glulam beams add visual warmth to the guest rooms while the 5 1/2-inch-thick CLT floor panels—which are topped with a layered assembly of lightweight concrete, sound mat, plywood and hardwood flooring—deliver a field-verified, superior acoustical performance IIC rating of 52. According to the design team, the use of wood provided a total potential carbon savings of 540 metric tons. 17,588 sf/Type VA construction.