Appleton-based Urban Evolutions has joined Cambium, bringing together two companies that offer responsibly sourced wood products for construction.
It is Cambium’s second deal this year and sixth in five years as it builds a national market for wood. According to Urban Evolution founders Robin and Jeff Janson, it is an opportunity they began pursuing after watching how the San Francsico-based company approached the market since its founding six years ago.
The two businesses fill separate niches with Cambium primarily offering exterior products and Urban Evolutions offering largely interior products.
“Our staff is excited because… this is a growth opportunity for us,” Robin Janson says. Urban Evolutions’ experienced staff also brings expertise in the industry that will benefit Cambium, according to Janson.
Janson sees it as an opportunity to expand their product showroom with additional products creating a “destination showroom.”
For 27 years Urban Evolutions has designed and manufactured customized wood products for commercial, retail and residential projects, including dimensional wall paneling, flooring and architectural veneer made from reclaimed, urban and select-harvest wood, and Tribal wood from Tribal Nations’ timber harvests.
Cambium’s portfolio spans exterior cladding, decking, thermally modified and fire-resistant wood, and structural products. Urban Evolutions brings Cambium its first full interiors offering, with a depth in paneling, flooring and veneer the portfolio has not had before.
“Urban Evolutions and Cambium have been selling to the same architects and designers for the same reason: they want the most sustainable wood that will work for the project, and a team that knows the material well enough to get it right. Together we can now do that for the entire building, interiors and exteriors, at national scale. Robin and her team have been working at that level for a long time. This just means we get to do it together,” said Ben Christensen, co-founder and CEO of Cambium.
Urban Evolutions’ work includes LinkedIn’s LEED Gold Omaha campus and Sunnyvale offices and OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, all with Gensler, and Harvard’s One Milestone life science complex with Studio Gang and Henning Larsen. In retail, it has supplied Nike’s SoHo store and URBN, the parent of Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People, including its headquarters and more than 600 stores.
“For nearly three decades we have asked our clients to see building materials as a finite resource, and Cambium was built on that same belief. We chose Cambium because it gives our clients more products, local expertise in more markets, and one relationship for an entire project,” Robin said.
Urban Evolutions is the second company to join Cambium this year, after General Woodcraft in July, and the sixth in five years alongside Lumber Tracker, OE Custom, Forward Forestry and Intectural.
