Construction on the David Rubenstein Treehouse, Harvard’s first mass‑timber building, has been finalised, with Studio Gang — the international architecture and urban design firm led by former Harvard graduate Jeanne Gang — unveiling the 55,000‑square‑foot convening centre that Harvard positions as a campus‑wide hub for interdisciplinary collaboration and a high‑profile test of low‑carbon construction on a major research campus.
Sited at the heart of Harvard’s new Enterprise Research Campus in Allston, the Treehouse is organised around a double‑height atrium accessed through three ground‑level entrances and threaded by a central staircase. The circulation is framed by an exposed mass‑timber structure intended to evoke the experience of climbing into a treehouse. “When we were in early design during the COVID‑19 era, we were envisioning spaces where people could hang out,” said Jeanne Gang, who spoke to Metropolis Magazine. “We put the core in the centre and arranged casual spaces around it to encourage people to circle around and gather.”
The building culminates at the top in Canopy Hall, the principal assembly space that opens onto a terrace with broad views of the campus and the city, the panorama fitted into a grid of timber columns. “On the north side is the Canopy Hall, the main gathering space, and then a terrace along the south façade,” Gang said. “There’s also a pre‑function area with other breakout spaces around it. We thought carefully about where to put that main space, and we landed at the top so that visitors could have the feeling of being ‘up in the canopy.’”
Studio Gang and Harvard portray the project as evidence that timber construction can be both expressive and high‑performing. The firm reported that the building’s embodied carbon is roughly 55 per cent lower than that of a comparable structure using conventional materials, a reduction the design team attributes to extensive use of responsibly sourced mass timber and a concrete mix used below grade and in elevator cores that substitutes ground glass pozzolan for a portion of cement. “From a sustainability standpoint, the building is designed to perform very well, especially when compared to similar buildings using traditional materials,” Gang said. “Our use of mass timber is a large part of this, along with the use of low‑carbon concrete below grade and for the elevator cores. The concrete mix uses ground glass pozzolan, a low‑carbon cement replacement made from post‑consumer glass containers.”
The building’s environmental strategy extends beyond embodied carbon. The Treehouse is designed for zero on-site fossil-fuel combustion, ties into Harvard’s District Energy Facility for heating and cooling, and utilises rooftop solar, daylighting strategies, and a raised floor system that helps condition interiors while concealing major mechanical systems. Interior materials and finishes were selected to exclude certain harmful chemical classes, and the landscape plan pairs biodiverse plantings with bioswales and rooftop rainwater capture to support habitat and on‑site water reuse. Harvard states that the project is pursuing Living Building Challenge Core and Petal certifications, aligning with the university’s Healthier Building Academy objectives.
Visually, the Treehouse makes its structural logic legible: canted timber columns branch outward to support a cantilevered upper floor while façades are articulated with diagonal panels that both shield the wood structure and reveal its branched geometry. “We were able to use mass timber throughout, but we also thought about how to innovate with it,” Gang said.
“A lot of people think that mass timber only lends itself to boxier forms, but we wanted to create a new shape that could expand beyond those. We also had to produce a high‑performance envelope. We needed cladding to waterproof this wood structure, and that’s where these interesting diagonal panels on the façade came into the design. We also had to clad the structure, since it cannot be exposed, so we let it express itself through its branched form.”
The Rubenstein Treehouse is one of the first buildings to open on the Enterprise Research Campus, a multi-block redevelopment project converting former industrial parcels in Allston into a mixed-use district for research, enterprise, and neighbourhood life. The ERC master plan was co‑led by Studio Gang and Henning Larsen, with landscape architecture by SCAPE and urban planning and local advisory by Utile.
- To learn more about Harvard’s plans for mass timber and how the university remains on track to reach net‑zero campus emissions by next year, click here for Wood Central’s special feature last month.
