This summer, BUILD’s Andrew van Leeuwen interviewed architect Maria Orvesten of White Architecture at her Stockholm office. They discuss the age of mass timber – from the early problem-solving that got the industry here to the honest, tactile experience of the architecture. Orvesten shares insights on carbon budgets, craft, and collaboration, and why the future of construction depends not on convincing people timber works, but on giving more architects and engineers the experience to build with it confidently.
AvL: Tell me how you came to be at White Architecture, and how you became an expert in mass timber design and construction.
MO: I’ve been an architect here at White Architecture since 2012, where I’m currently the leader of a group of about 20 people. My knowledge of mass timber structures came from working directly on large-scale timber projects.
Was there already a body of knowledge about mass timber when you arrived at White Architecture or did you educate yourself along the way? How did you learn the nuts and bolts of mass timber construction?
It was both of those things. White is a big firm and, while I’m situated in Stockholm, we have offices all over Sweden and an office in London and Stuttgart — which means a lot of people with a lot of collective knowledge in mass timber design and construction. We didn’t know everything about mass timber construction when we started these projects but we had brave clients and really good consultants. Everyone on these projects has to be forward-thinking and a leader in their own particular specialty. The early mass timber projects were excellent examples of problem-solving through discussion and collaboration.
Timber construction has been around for ages, but its popularity declined for roughly 100 years, falling out of favor for commercial and multi-family projects. Why has that changed in the last decade?
Sweden has a long history with timber, but historically not at industrial scale or in large-scale projects. Concrete and steel became dominant during industrialization because they solved two problems timber couldn’t: fire resistance and structural capacity for high-rise buildings. Moisture was also a persistent challenge for timber construction.
Those problems are now largely solved—we know how to manage fire resistance in timber buildings and can build high-rises (20+ stories) out of timber today.
But the real driver now is sustainability: timber is the only major building material that actually stores carbon rather than emitting it during production. That makes it a key material for the future of construction.
Was there a single moment, client, or building that became a tipping point for you—where you saw the potential of mass timber construction?
Yes, I led the design of the Sara Kulturhus in Skellefteå, which was one of the first mass timber structures in Sweden when it was completed in 2021. The building is 20 stories tall, has several different programmatic requirements, and includes six auditoriums with high acoustic standards—on top of solving everything else a building of this scale demands in mass timber construction. The project was a success and became proof of concept for my work in mass timber.
Did the building start out with the idea of being mass timber construction, or were other systems explored?
Yes and no. It started out as a competition that White won. I don’t think the client explicitly stated that the building had to be mass timber, but they brought in a policy document stating that when the municipality is the developer, wood should always be considered and chosen if technically possible.
There’s always a builder that claims they can do it a different way for 20% cheaper – so, how do you push back against the resistance to the higher cost of mass timber?
The client was instrumental with the timber strategy and supported the method along with the cost.
The advantages of saving carbon dioxide with mass timber as opposed to concrete or steel construction are well documented. What other advantages does mass timber framing bring to an architecture project that should appeal to clients?
As an architect, one of the biggest advantages is that timber’s structure can become part of the architectural expression itself—it doesn’t have to be hidden. Beyond that, there are real practical benefits. Wood construction is significantly faster, and the job site is much quieter, which matters in dense urban environments. Time is money on most job sites, so a shorter timeline matters to owners, and a quieter site is also a great selling point to the surrounding community. It also lends itself well to prefabrication: components can be precast or prefabricated off-site and then assembled in place, which speeds things up and creates a better working environment for the construction crews. Wood is also a lightweight material, which means you can build on top of existing structures without having to reinforce the foundation or structure below.
Talk about the challenges that are inherent in mass timber construction that you don’t have with other techniques.
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily more challenging, but it does require a different approach. As an architect, you have to make decisions much earlier in the process—things like routing for ducts and voids need to be planned for and built into the components in the factory, since it’s far harder to adjust on site than with concrete or steel.
The bigger challenge, though, is that there’s still a knowledge gap in the industry. Many clients and contractors simply haven’t worked with timber systems before, and that inexperience can affect both cost and efficiency. We still need much more collaboration across the industry to share knowledge and build that expertise more broadly.
How should mass timber construction be communicated in the media so that the public understands its importance and advantages?
It might be less about how we promote it and more about the actual experience of being in these buildings. When I’m visiting Skellefteå, I like to sit and work in the lobby at Sara Kulturhus and watch people’s reactions when they walk into the space. They seem pleasantly surprised and comment on the wonderful smell of the wood and the quality of the space.
It takes a lot to get Swedes to comment on how a space makes them feel. So, the branding of mass timber may be more about the feel than the science?
There are things that just hit you when you enter, and even people outside the design industry leave with a real impression. I think that timber is a material we somehow have in our genes. It resonates better with humans. Timber buildings are honest – we understand them.
What are some other metrics that are important to understand about Sara Kulturhus?
One thing worth highlighting is the building’s relationship to its location. The Skellefteå region is deeply tied to forestry and the timber industry, and all the wood used in the project was sourced and processed within about 80 kilometers of the site—so the building is very locally produced, drawing on the knowledge and industry already established in the region. That regional connection is part of the story, alongside timber’s broader advantages like carbon storage.
There’s also a lot happening structurally within the building itself. Of the 20 stories, the top 13 floors are built using modular construction—like building with Legos. Each hotel room is its own prefabricated module.
Talk more about the modular system for the hotel.
Every hotel room module contains a smaller bathroom module, and the structural panels become the visible wood surfaces in each room. During construction, each hotel room module was lifted into place one by one—and as long as it wasn’t too windy, this allowed the builder to complete a floor per week.
Describe the Stockholm Wood City project.
We’re currently working on the first office building in Stockholm Wood City, just east of the downtown area. I’ve previously worked on housing there, but this is my first office project in the area. It’s a fascinating site with a great sustainability-focused client, though the building itself is relatively small in scale.
The building is constructed above a ramp leading down to a mine that’s still fully operational—so we’re building directly on top of it. Wood is a great fit here for weight reasons, since it’s much lighter than concrete or steel and puts less load on the structure below, which matters when you’re building over something like an active mine.
Architecturally, the building is fairly straightforward: about seven identical floors stacked on top of each other. We’ve finalized the structural system and hope to begin construction soon.
Given the aesthetic importance of the structural frame, the relationship between architect and structural engineer must be paramount on these projects.
It’s absolutely critical, and not every engineer is equipped for it. There’s a real distinction between a general structural engineer and someone who specializes in timber—who understands what timber can and can’t do structurally, while also having an eye for how that structure needs to read architecturally. When you find engineers who speak that language, it makes for a genuinely close, collaborative way of working. I actually first saw this dynamic as a student in Switzerland, where architects and structural engineers worked much more closely together than I’d seen elsewhere.
Is there a reuse scenario for mass timber construction?
Reuse is something we think about at the early design phase on every project, not just timber ones—it’s important not to bring in materials that aren’t sustainable or appropriate. But timber specifically opens up a lot to explore, particularly around how components are joined together. If you look at Sara Kulturhus, you’ll see steel plates at many of the connections. It’s an honest solution—you can see how the structure is put together—but I don’t think it’s necessarily the most elegant way to solve that problem.
I think this is where architects and engineers need to push further: getting down to the detail level of how joints are made. If you look back at traditional timber housing, the joinery itself was often a real craft, and I think there’s more room to bring that sensibility into large-scale, industrialized timber construction. It’s partly about reuse—better joints can make future disassembly and reuse easier—but it’s also simply an architectural question. There’s real opportunity to bring that level of detail and craft into buildings at this scale.
Let’s talk about Sara Kulturhus in particular. Is there a rough timeline the building is designed for, and how do you see the building entering the circular economy?
I’d actually frame it differently. We’re already demolishing fewer buildings, which is a good thing, but the bigger opportunity isn’t really about taking buildings apart—it’s about designing buildings that can change and adapt over time. In just the five years since Sara was completed, it’s already being used in ways we didn’t originally design for, and it’s working. That’s something we think about a lot as architects: how do you design a building that can become something else in the future? My hope for Sara is exactly that—that it continues to evolve and take on new uses well beyond what we originally envisioned.
If Sara did eventually enter the circular economy in a more literal sense, you can actually picture how that would work. Because the structure is modular—prefabricated and assembled with mechanical connections rather than poured or welded together—you could genuinely take it apart. Unscrew a module, remove it, and that piece could be reused elsewhere.
It also works at a smaller scale: you could take down an interior wall and combine two rooms into one. It’s almost intuitive—even without knowing every technical step, you can see exactly where you’d start, because the way it’s assembled makes the logic visible.
These are wonderful projects, but they’re still boutique, one-off examples. What lessons need to be implemented in order to systemize mass timber for repeatable multi-family projects anywhere?
I’m not sure it’s really the system that needs to change—I’d point back to what we’ve already been talking about: knowledge and experience. The more these get built and the more people in the industry actually work with timber, the more the perceived risk comes down, and that’s what allows it to move from boutique, one-off projects into standard practice everywhere.
How do you educate clients on mass timber construction?
Many clients already come to us with a sustainability policy or a climate declaration—essentially a carbon budget they need to build within—but not all of them fully understand what that number actually means in practice. So a big part of our job is translating it: showing them what that budget actually allows if you build in concrete versus timber versus a hybrid approach. Often it becomes clear that they simply can’t afford, carbon-wise, to build in concrete and still meet their own target.
It’s genuinely complex, even for us. We’re constantly running the numbers on individual decisions—what does adding a steel beam here cost us against the carbon budget? Sometimes a steel beam is still the right call structurally, but it’s about understanding the real tradeoff each time. What’s notable is that we’re tracking a carbon budget alongside the cost budget, the same way you’d track a financial budget—and once you have that number in front of you, you really can’t ignore it.
What advice do you have for architecture students who will soon enter the design industry?
Stay curious—things in this field shift fast, and what was true yesterday may not apply today. Pay attention, keep listening, and get out into the industry to see what’s actually happening.
When I teach, I often come back to something we touched on earlier: students are still mostly getting their structural guidance from conventional structural engineers, not timber specialists. So when I visit schools and look at student projects, I’ll often ask, “Could you have done this in timber?” And the response is usually something like, “I didn’t even think to ask that,” or “My structural engineer told me this is how you build the wall.” It’s a good exercise to push back and ask why a particular structural approach was chosen by default, rather than assuming the conventional way is the only way.
What should architects have on their bookshelves to keep up with this conversation?
Material Cultures: Material Reform, Building for a Post-Carbon Future
Maria Orvesten is an architect and Group Manager at White Arkitekter in Stockholm. She studied architecture at the KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm and the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Maria specializes in complex, large-scale timber construction projects and has contributed to landmark developments such as Sara Cultural Centre and Stockholm Wood City. Alongside new construction, she works extensively with the transformation of existing buildings, with a strong focus on sustainability and circular design principles.
Interview funded in part by the Thuréus Research Home and Nature Monument Foundation for Culture, Nature, Literature and Art
– Stockholm, Sweden.