Join fellow architects and design professionals for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of one of Wisconsin's most established architectural wood door manufacturers. With a heritage in door production dating to 1908, Marshfield Door Systems combines more than a century of woodworking craftsmanship with advanced manufacturing technology to produce high-performance architectural wood doors for education, healthcare, hospitality, commercial, and institutional projects across North America.

This tour provides an inside look at the complex manufacturing operations behind interior architectural components, from the precision-engineered world of wood substrates to the high-performance fabrication of mineral-core fire doors. Participants will explore how raw materials—ranging from wood chips to mineral core raw components are combined with various face materials including wood veneer, high pressure decorative laminate and high density fiber boards—are transformed into durable, code-compliant solutions for the built environment. Through firsthand access to active production lines, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between manufacturing tolerances, life-safety performance, and the environmental health of indoor spaces.

Presenter: Amanda Patterson, Forte Opening Solutions

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the core manufacturing processes for particleboard, mineral-core, and architectural doors, illustrating how specific production variables like resin chemistry, press density, and moisture control directly dictate the structural integrity, fire resistance, and acoustic performance of the final assembly.
• Apply knowledge of material transparency and indoor air quality to evaluate how low-emitting adhesives, ULEF (Ultra Low Emitting Formaldehyde) substrates, and factory-applied finishes contribute to LEED, WELL, and other green building frameworks to protect occupant health.
• Identify essential Life Safety and HSW criteria for specifying mineral-core doors, including the nuances of fire-rating labels, hardware reinforcements, and positive-pressure testing to ensure the building envelope and internal partitions perform critically during fire and smoke emergencies.
• Analyze specification best practices for custom door and panel fabrication—such as factory-prepped hardware, glass (lite) installation, and finish tolerances—to reduce on-site waste, mitigate field-modification errors, and ensure long-term durability and maintainability in high-traffic commercial environments.

PPE to be provided by Forte