The Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus has been a largely brick and stone environment, but a building now under construction there is bucking the trend. Now rising out of the ground near Charles and 33rd streets, the $250 million Hopkins Student Center is one of the first contemporary buildings in Baltimore, and the first on the Homewood campus, to feature heavy timber construction – a process that uses large wooden beams to form the structural framework of a building instead of steel or concrete.  Although the student center has been under construction for more than a year, much of the early work involved building the massive underground foundation that won’t be visible when the buildng is complete. Only in the past several months has it been possible to see the structure taking shape above ground, including the heavy timber structural framework that will be left exposed.  The National Fire Protection Association defines heavy timber construction as a system that has main framing members measuring no less than eight inches by eight inches and exterior walls made of non-combustible materials. The beams can be either glue-laminated or sawn.  The construction process involves prefabricating structural components that are delivered as a kit of parts that can be assembled on site – a method different from the “stick-built” process homebuilders generally employ.  Developers used heavy timber to build the 40TEN Boston office building at 4010 Boston St. Photo by Ed Gunts. In Europe, Canada and on the West Coast of the United States, heavy timber construction has become popular as clients find that it can be more environmentally-friendly than building with steel or concrete, since wood is a renewable resource. Heavy timber construction can also help set a building apart aesthetically and for marketing purposes.  In Baltimore, clients have been slow to embrace heavy timber construction, but it is allowed under the city’s building code. Other local examples of heavy timber construction include the 40Ten Boston office building on Boston Street in Canton, which opened last year, and the Under Armour headquarters under construction in south Baltimore. New gathering spot  The student center is one of several major projects now under construction or planned for Hopkins’ Homewood campus, including a new home for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at 3100 Wyman Park Drive and a $130 million modernization of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at 3400 N. Charles St.  Unlike many campuses, Hopkins never had a traditional student union that served as a central social hub for all members of the community. Hopkins officials say it will be a new kind of “non-academic gathering spot.” When complete in 2025, the 138,000-square-foot building will contain four levels of non-academic spaces, including themed lounges, art and enrichment spaces, locations for student resources and support services, 250-seat theater, dance studio and dining options. A rendering depicts the Hopkins Student Center. Credit: Bjarke Ingels Group. Instead of setting the building above street level, the architects proposed cutting into the hill and creating a structure that has a main entrance at street level and opens up to Charles Street. The building’s massing, seemingly a series of interlocking volumes cascading down the hill, will form a bridge from the main campus to the Charles Village neighborhood to the east. The flat roofs will have solar panels for energy efficiency, and their different heights and sizes will hint at the programming inside. A central plaza will provide a setting for exhibits, performances and vendors, including food trucks.  Designers include the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) as the lead architect; Shepley Bulfinch as the architect of record; Rockwell Group as the interior designer, and Michael Van Valkenburgh as the landscape architect. Clark Construction Group is the contractor. ‘Almost unbeatable’ Bjarke Ingels, the Danish architect who heads BIG and is a leading proponent of environmentally-friendly design, said he’s pleased with the way the Hopkins project is taking shape. Interviewed during a stop last year in Washington, D. C., Ingels said the first third of construction at Hopkins involved site excavation and the pouring of a concrete foundation, but “everything above-ground is all mass timber, gorgeous.” Asked why the design team chose to go with a heavy timber structure, he said there were both aesthetic and environmental reasons. Architect Bjarke Ingels. Photo by Ed Gunts. “Timber, for a building of this scale, is almost unbeatable,” he said. “The bones of the building –the columns, the beams, the slabs — are beautiful in their own right. Without any material finishes, they are by themselves beautiful.” Based in Denmark with offices in New York City and elsewhere, Ingels said BIG recently finished work on “the most environmentally-friendly factory in the world, in Norway, entirely made out of mass timber, and the result is jaw-dropping.” He said exposed timber will give the Hopkins building a “warm and friendly feeling,” while the use of a renewable resource such as wood instead of steel or concrete “reduces the carbon footprint of the building dramatically.” Ingels acknowledged that architects and engineers can sometimes run into problems or face resistance getting plans approved by local building departments, if officials aren’t accustomed to reviewing designs involving heavy timber construction. Engineers have particularly debated how tall heavy timber buildings can rise and remain structurally sound. “It is probably, in this day and day, more difficult to get away with,” he conceded. But the fact that Baltimore’s housing department issued construction permits, he said, is a sign that local officials were willing to accept the approach Hopkins and its designers wanted to take.  “Whatever hoops we had to jump through, we made it through,” he said.