Award

June 2021

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J U N E 2 0 2 1 | 23 Engineered Wood Products P H OTO G R A P H Y BY M I C H A EL EL K A N / CO U RT E SY WO O D WO R K S! B C Engineered wood market continues on a healthy growth trajectory in spite of rising lumber prices by NATALIE BRUCKNER W hile skyrocket- ing lumber prices, the pandemic, and old-fashioned mis- conceptions may have created some challenges for the engineered wood market over the past year, there have been a number of developments that are spurring the market. The recent announcement by the B.C. govern- ment that they will be investing $4.2 million in mass timber construction across B.C. is another win. After many years of involvement with hundreds of projects, Wood Works! BC is pleased to see oppor- tunities for B.C.'s wood and mass timber products and systems make their way into newer building types and sizes. The GCWood program through Natural Resources Canada continues to broaden the awareness of wood as a sustainable and renewable construction material and to increase the domestic capacity for wood in Canadian construction. The new head office for internationally- renowned structural engineering firm, Fast + Epp, was the first GCWood project to be announced and recognized by the Canadian Wood Council and the B.C. forest industry for its innovation and ingenuity in wood design and building. The hybrid mass tim- ber building, located in Vancouver on Yukon and 7th Street, is among the first office buildings in B.C. to use mass timber as a structural material, and will showcase a number of structural innovations and technologies, including a state-of-the-art Concept Lab that will open fall 2021. Other GCWood projects include two B.C. schools to be constructed as part of recent seismic upgrades to make schools safer. Bayview Elementary School and Sir Matthew Begbie Elementary School are part of a Vancouver School Board pilot project for future mass timber schools. A fourth project, Lumbering ON! the KF Aerospace Centre of Excellence, was also announced. This building utilizes innovative mass timber systems for the roof, walls and staircase. ON5 is the latest GC Wood project to be announced – it will be the first office building in Canada con- structed using specialized high-performance cross-laminated timber panels. "These innovative new wood projects will address today's urgent demand for more efficient construc- tion using sustainable building materials that will positively transform our built environment," says Lynn Embury-Williams, executive director of Wood Works! BC. Over in Alberta, there is positive news too. Rory Koska, director at Alberta Wood Works! says that the construction market has gone crazy. He adds that while the pandemic has created some speed bumps, there have also been some great lessons learned. "We were a little hesitant to change how we deliv- ered education, but the pandemic pushed us to deliver on a virtual platform, which means we can now reach more people." Another positive change over the past 12 months has been the Government of Alberta becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to permit 12-storey wood buildings province-wide. "That's been a big step for the industry. While we haven't seen any projects come to fruition yet, we have a dozen projects we are working with," says Koska. It seems interest in wood buildings isn't just com- ing from architects and engineers, either. "We are seeing a lot more developers come to us. They believe in mass timber now, and see that building with wood can be economical too. It's also a great sales tactic for owners due to the sustainability element." Alberta Wood Works! continues to focus on edu- cation, and addressing misconceptions, the top two of which are acoustic properties of wood buildings and fire safety. Rory and the team work closely with Andre Rioux, co-owner of Acoustitech in Alberta. Rioux says the misconception about acoustics comes from a misunderstanding about the two types of acous- tic elements: airborne noise (known as STC – people talking, television) and impact noise (known as the IIC – people walking, moving chairs) "The Code is responsible for a lot of misinformation because there is only a requirement for the STC. The IIC is not required by code. However, around 80-plus percent of complaints that we see from a multi-fam- ily dwelling comes from the IIC," explains Rioux. To address this, Rioux and his team have been educating the industry and telling them that a fam- ily living in a dwelling doesn't know what a code requires, nor do they care...they just hear the noise. The industry is changing however, and Rioux says education on the topic is resulting in increased understand of the importance of addressing both the IIC and STC, but it has been a struggle. The way acoustic tests are conducted is also an issue. "Published ratings can be misguiding because they don't consider all the elements involved in that particular building, and this leads to a lot of unethi- cal data being thrown out that creates confusion. You need to understand where the weaknesses are and then you can control it and achieve incredible things." New codes, the further use of BIM, and an increasing number of EWP projects continue to boost confidence in the market and Structurecraft is one company that remains well positioned to deal with every eventuality. Head office construction of Fast + Epp, Vancouver, B.C.

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