‘The Hale,’ a curved-gable mass timber civic pavilion built from cross-laminated timber and glulam, elevated above the tide line and clad with rainscreen façades and protected steel connections for sea-level rise, storm surges and salt exposure, has been pitched for Honolulu’s Kakaʻako Ma kai shoreline at the 2026 International Mass Timber Conference (IMTC) in Portland, Oregon.
That is according to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Architecture, where graduate students Edwin Sun, Jayden Uowolo and Dylan Martos developed the project in a first-semester graduate design studio under Dean Mo Zell and professors Ben Parker and Ho Kyung Lee.
Wood Central understands that ‘Hale’ is inspired by the traditional Hawaiian ‘place of shelter’ as a contemporary civic gathering space, with the design adding marine-grade coatings and cross-ventilation across the cladding to round out the tropical marine durability package. In addition, the design team also explored locally harvested softwoods to strengthen regional supply chains and cut transport-related carbon emissions across the timber value chain.
The studio brief asked how Pacific Island design traditions could inform modern public spaces in Honolulu, a question that ran through the team’s material specifications as much as its spatial planning across the Kakaʻako site.
Uowolo, who travelled to Portland with Sun and Martos to deliver the presentation, said the conference had pushed his thinking on how Pacific Island traditions could feed contemporary mass timber design.
“Traditional Pacific Island ideas can shape contemporary design,” Uowolo said.
Parker, who guided the studio with fellow professor Ho Kyung Lee, said industry-facing events of IMTC’s scale gave architecture students early career exposure that fed back into the school and the wider profession.
“They give them early exposure to the critical topics professional architects are discussing,” Parker said.
It comes as Wood Central reported a USDA-led study projecting a 25-to-40-fold lift in US mass timber demand to 2070, with the Port of Portland’s 40-acre Terminal 2 redevelopment now positioning Oregon as the United States’ domestic leader on mass timber housing innovation.
