Award

J UNE 2018 | 35 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY WESTERN ARCHRIB; WOOD WORKS! BC Engineered Wood Products "In Vancouver, the Terrace House features a 19-storey building; the lower 12 storeys have a concrete podium style, and floors 13 to 19 are luxury condomini- ums constructed with mass timber," says Lema. "This type of construction is popular for many reasons, including carbon capture and the beauty of the design. The attitude towards mass timber has made a big difference. This option is not as foreign to authorities now as it might have been in the past." Lema says having engineered wood products available in any length is one of the baselines for construction of multi-storey wood buildings. "Having the design community bracing the option as a bonafide architecturally, acoustically, and fire-resistant method of building is also driving the deci- sions," he says. Timmerman Timberworks Inc. has been providing mass timber products to the building community for more than 20 years. "We specialize in providing solid sawn and mass timber options for high-end residential and commercial buildings, very different than conventional stick framing," says Charles Ferguson, director of com- mercial construction. "The commercial construction industry is making huge advances and embracing the mass timber revolution – the revolution has been slowly growing over the past five years. We are a specialist in the area of large dimensional glulam and floor systems comprised of solid timber." Ferguson says Timmerman works with architects, engineers, and munici- palities to design and build town halls, recreation centres, or similar structures that wish to use mass timbers for any number of reasons, including esthetic appeal. "Studies have already related increased productivity and satisfaction of end users in buildings where you have exposed wood or timber, versus concrete," he says. Ferguson adds, "Mass timber can be used for the super- structure of the building and left exposed. In some cases we are talking about using solid timber columns up to two feet by two feet in size. We ensure that the wood is harvested in a sustainable fashion and both grown and manufactured in Canada. Carbon sequestration is also a major topic for mass timber construction; wood stores CO2 and for every pound used within a building there's a related storage of carbon and benefit to the environment." Ferguson notes the use of timber products in buildings and bridges built hundreds of years ago is a reflection of the product's strength and versatility. Stephen Tolnai, VP, sales and marketing, construction products at Structurlam Products Ltd., knows that with the increasing threat of climate change, the building and con- struction industry has a crucial role to play in the conception of a sustainable and greener world. "Six-and-a-half percent of all CO2 emissions derive from iron and steel production, and more than five percent from the production of cement, the primary ingredient in concrete," he says. "While these materials have historically been critical in the production of high-rise buildings, advancements in CLT manufacturing point to wood as the future of sustainable high-rise construction." Structurlam has been leading the charge in the design and manufacturing of environmentally-friendly buildings. The first Canadian CLT manufacturer to earn SFI Chain-of-Custody Certification, Structurlam products are officially recognized by green building rating systems. "By using only raw material from timber harvested from certified sustainably managed timberlands, Structurlam hopes to measure and mitigate the environmental impacts of the manufacturing and construction industries," says Tolnai. He adds building sustainably means constantly seeking out new and innovative ways to incorporate environmental aspects into the company's product development. "As one example, the 170,000-square-foot Fort McMurray International Airport is the largest application of CLT technology in Western Canada. Notably, the structure was built in part using wood reclaimed and repurposed from the devastating pine beetle epidemic in B.C. By using CLT in lieu of steel or concrete, the result is a lightweight, durable structure that integrates seamlessly with its natural environment, with a warm interior design. In addition to a reduced carbon footprint in the manufactur- ing process, the team was able to speed up construction time and reduce cost of construction." Tucked away in the small town of Deroche, B.C., the Mount Carmel meeting hall is another example of sweeping design using mass timber construction. "The building is 14,000 square feet and the great hall has walls up to 40-feet high," says John Paone, director and senior VP of AHC Group. "One unique thing about this project is the biomass boiler we added in a separate building," he says. "The heating system is for the two structures, the first phase and second phase, and it uses wood chips for the boiler. Eventually, they'll be able to harvest their own wood and create chips to feed the boiler. Even the cedar trees that were cleared for the proj- ect have all been milled and are going to be incorporated into landscape features such as trellises, arbors, and benches." Paone says 90 percent of the structure is exposed, creat- ing a warm environment for those who use the building. "The main room will be used for meetings, weddings, church functions, and other social gatherings. It has a commercial kitchen attached to it." The project is due to be completed by the spring of 2019. Wood WORKS! BC's executive director, Lynn Embury- Williams says, "Tremendous advances in wood product research and manufacturing are revolutionizing how we design and con- struct buildings, and wood is emerging as a primary material in building types that we wouldn't have seen 20 years ago, including taller multi-unit residen- tial, institutional, commercial, and now industrial buildings." Such is the case with the 2018 Wood Design Awards B.C. winner in the Prefabricated Structural Wood category – the new StructureCraft Manufacturing Facility in Abbotsford. Built to house the manufacturing of the new DLT mass timber product, the StructureCraft manufacturing facility showcases a new way to construct industrial buildings using wood as the primary material instead of steel and concrete. Thirty-foot-tall, tilt-up timber structural wall panels form the exte- rior of the building. The 63-foot-long roof panels along both panel edges are made of slender Douglas fir glulam beams that have strategically placed steps in the top surface, creating inverted "belly-beams", deeper (for structural efficiency) in the centre of the span, while also naturally creating slopes to drain. The two-by-12 Douglas fir custom-notched roof joists rest on the stepped beams so the plywood-sheathed curve is completely smooth. The entire shop was erected in five days, including 74 wall and 54 roof panels. The office component has exposed spruce glulam and NLT panels, and non-exposed prefabricated stud and plywood wall panels – all brought together and analyzed first in 3D. The second floor and roof are panels with machined recesses filled with fibrous mate- rial, hidden and very effective for noise absorption. The cladding and rainscreen system uses spaced horizontal Douglas fir boards shaped to repel water that are Mosaic Centre For Conscious Community & Commerce, Edmonton, AB. StructureCraft Manufacturing Facility, Abbotsford, B.C.

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