University of Oregon
Oregon Acoustic Research Laboratory (OARL)

Portland, Oregon

The Oregon Acoustic Research Laboratory (OARL) is a 14,100 SF facility and America’s first acoustic testing facility dedicated to mass timber. It will provide testing spaces to advance multi-story housing and commercial construction. Alliant is performing the plumbing and mechanical scope, including AHUs, sounds attenuators, VRV, compressed air, waste and domestic water systems. The building’s ground floor offices are clad in rough sawn juniper harvested from Central Oregon, contributing to ongoing work to reduce juniper from the landscape and supporting habitat restoration. Currently, lack of acoustics testing is widely recognized as a barrier to the development of affordable mass timber multi-family housing in North America. OARL will provide floor-to-ceiling testing chambers capable of delivering reliable and repeatable acoustical test results compliant with laboratory acoustic sound transmission, laboratory impact isolation and sound transmission, and for in-room impact sound.