On this episode of The Real Finds Podcast, Gordon Lamphere sits down with Justin Den Herder, structural engineer, professor at The Cooper Union, and principal at global engineering firm TY Lin, to unpack what mass timber really means for commercial real estate.

They dig into how mass timber moves from romantic concept to bankable project, why embodied carbon is finally showing up in real underwriting conversations, and how timber can make adaptive reuse deals pencil out in a tighter capital markets environment.

In this episode, Gordon and Justin discuss

• How Justin’s early work on heavy timber and masonry conversions led him into the world of mass timber

• Why timber’s strength-to-weight ratio and panelized fabrication make taller, column-free commercial buildings possible

• The embodied carbon math behind steel, ...