Case Study: Matt’s Place

Photos courtesy of Milxler Hull Partnership

Matt’s Place Demonstration Project in Spokane, Washington. The cutting-edge prototype shows how accessible homes can be beautiful and biophilic, functional, and replicable.⁴⁹

Location: Spokane, Washington
Modular CLT Prototype Using Universal Design
Construction: Mass Timber Modular Kits

Universal design is an approach to designing buildings, products, and environments that are accessible and usable by all people, regardless of their age, ability, or status. The goal of universal design is to create spaces and products that are inclusive, functional, and aesthetically pleasing for everyone.

Matt’s Place is an innovative demonstration project in Spokane, Washington, that follows these principles of universal design. It is constructed of modularized cross-laminated timber (CLT) and incorporates smart home technologies.

CLT panels are made by laminating pieces of softwood lumber in perpendicular layers, which is what makes CLT panels strong, lightweight, and durable. They are particularly well-suited to buildings that require a high degree of prefabrication because the panels can be manufactured off-site and then assembled on site, reducing construction time and waste. They are versatile enough to be used in a variety of construction applications, including walls, roofs, floors, hybrid systems, or even entire buildings.

Matt’s Place is one of the few homes in the country designed specifically to support patients living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and their families. The cutting-edge prototype, designed by Seattle-based architecture firm Miller Hull, is an example of how accessible homes can be beautiful and biophilic, functional, and replicable.

Challenge: ALS is a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing a debilitating loss of muscle control and significantly impacting mobility. As such, the prototype residence needed to offer complete accessibility in a way that was cost-effective but didn’t skimp on aesthetics.

Matthew Wild, a Marine Corps veteran diagnosed with ALS in 2015, founded an organization called Matt’s Place Foundation with his wife, Theresa Whitlock-Wild, to assist people with ALS and their families. They wanted to see if they could solve some of the big equity challenges in the ALS world by pushing the boundaries of smart, sustainable, and universal design. And they wanted to do it in a way that was replicable.

Solution: To experiment with the model, Matt’s Place Foundation had the support of a coalition of businesses, which included a design firm, Miller Hull Partnership that donated services pro bono. The coalition developed a solution that would be built off-site from a mass timber kit. It’s a modularized approach that is scalable but flexible enough to fit the unique needs of any project.

“An important goal, as a case study home, was being able to repeat this product while at the same time keeping it flexible. The design really allows you to adapt it to different needs, whether you include an upper floor for a family home, remove the top two bedrooms to better suit a couple, or even isolate the patient suite and turn it into an ADU [accessory dwelling unit]—the concept offers so much versatility,” says Andy Barrett, a board member of Matt’s Place Foundation.⁵⁰

Result: The two-story, 1,500-square-foot smart home is composed of 13 CLT modules made up of a floor, walls, and roof that are prebuilt and assembled onsite. It features universal design elements that can help people with ALS tackle everyday tasks.

The home also aims to be an eco-friendly, net-zero energy exemplar, cutting carbon with its thermally efficient envelope, use of regionally sourced mass timber, purchase of carbon offsets, and installation of a roof-top photovoltaic array. The design was guided by the requirements of the Living Building Challenge and avoided the use of Red List materials.

But it’s the customizable kit itself that holds the most promise as another creative approach to the housing crisis. The prefabricated CLT modules are shipped with insulation, rain screen, and windows preinstalled. The design includes an internal spline between the 4-foot panels to accommodate a conduit for cables and wiring, making it easier to add outlets, light switches, or other smart infrastructure as needed. The wider positive social impact that could expand this mass timber kit to more homes for people living with ALS also applies to anyone requiring accessibility, including aging populations. In fact, most universal designers would argue that universal design is—as its name implies—a design for everyone.

With modular design, there is room for innovation. But it also offers a solution in which the wheel really does not need to be reinvented. Creating customized, accessible environments for those with specific needs, makes these designs replicable and therefore affordable, so they don’t have to be redesigned in the future. And the scalability of modular design provides a solution for the housing shortage that does not need to sacrifice accessibility, sustainability, aesthetics, or any other healthy building principles.

“Social equity and this idea of empathy in design, are some of the noblest of goals for architecture. The Matt’s Place case study house is a good example of this: tackling accessible universal design, affordability, and climate and carbon while also thinking about healthy, non-toxic materials, occupant comfort, biophilic benefits, and wellness,” said Court. “We’re really excited about this evolution in the role of the architect—going beyond the superfluous to come up with more socially just, inclusive, and equitable solutions.”⁵¹

A Nationwide Push for Wood

In May 2022, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced more than $32 million to fund wood innovations and community grants across the country. The goal of the funding is to expand the use of wood in affordable housing projects as a way to tackle issues such as affordable housing, wildfire, and climate change crises.

“Removing hazardous trees that would otherwise threaten wildfire-prone communities and having rural, forest-based economies turn those materials into renewable building and energy products stand as examples of how a clean energy economy is within reach,” Vilsack said in a United States Department of Agriculture press release.

The announcement was made at the site of a new mass timber project at 304 5th Street in the Junction Valley business district of West Des Moines, Iowa. The three-story building features massive columns and beams made of mass timber and is partially supported by the USDA’s Wood Innovations Grants Program and Community Wood Grant Program. A mix of commercial and residential space—with 11 affordable housing apartments—it is Iowa’s second mass timber development and the first one to include a residential component.⁵²

The federal government plans to remove kindling from about 75 million acres of land in the next decade — which includes thinning smaller-diameter trees from forests — to help prevent wildfires that have become more frequent and destructive in the western states. The idea would be that the leftover wood could be used in affordable housing projects with the help of the wood innovation grants.⁵³

“Wood innovation and community wood grants projects like these show us how we can tackle problems like the wildfire crisis and climate change while creating new markets, supporting jobs, building affordable housing, and improving conditions on our forests at the same time,” said Secretary Vilsack.