Roundwood House

For his thesis project at Auburn University’s Rural Studio, Matt helped lead an experimental design-build effort exploring the use of “roundwood” — small-diameter trees used in their raw, minimally processed form. The project embraced a technically challenging material system: unlike conventional milled lumber, roundwood continues to twist, shrink, and move as it dries and ages.

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The Roundwood House team developed a custom connection detail that allowed the wood members to move over time without compromising the stability, enclosure, or airtightness of the building. This joint became central to the project’s structural strategy, enabling the roundwood members to form a truss system while keeping the weather-tight building envelope independent from the irregular and dimensionally unstable timber.

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By separating the structural logic of the roundwood frame from the performance requirements of the exterior enclosure, the project transformed a difficult and underutilized material into the basis for an inventive, durable, and highly resolved architectural system.