While advancements in mass timber products and wood construction can help to build more resilient, climate-smart communities, there are still barriers, such as limited knowledge and experience about technical performance, constructibility and cost management best practices. Since 2020, the Province of British Columbia (B.C.) and Forestry Innovation Investment have invested over $9.1 million through B.C.’s Mass Timber Demonstration Program (MTDP) to help with the incremental costs associated with the design and construction of 19 building projects and 8 research projects that demonstrate emerging or new mass timber or mass timber hybrid building systems and construction processes.
Residential projects
Monad Granville
Located in downtown Vancouver, this nine-storey, mixed-use retail and multi-family residential building will be the first of its kind to demonstrate the use of mass timber and advanced prefabrication techniques and scalable industrialized solutions to address climate change and housing affordability.
Funding: $500,000
M5
This 25-storey rental building will demonstrate mass timber-steel-concrete use in a tall building. The project will demonstrate cost-effective design solutions using materials for their highest value. Learnings from the project will be shared as open source. The developers are aiming for the City of Vancouver’s Zero Emissions Building Plan standard.
Funding: $500,000
Main & Cordova
This 11-storey, multi-family residential building will demonstrate the use of mass timber-steel hybrid for affordable rental buildings. The proposed design includes 120 affordable homes as well as a learning space and community theatre.
Funding: $475,000
Vienna House
With additional support from the National Housing Strategy Demonstration initiative, this seven-storey, multi-family development in the heart of East Vancouver aims to establish best practices for affordable and sustainable housing. The building will feature mass timber and light-frame hybrid construction, making it efficient and replicable for new developments across B.C.
Funding $500,000
River District
This mixed-use development will feature an 18-storey mass timber tower and podium, and a seven-storey building, providing approximately 240 units of rental and strata housing to Vancouver’s Killarney neighbourhood. The building’s construction will include mass timber and steel hybrid and will leverage prefabrication for the balconies to reduce thermal bridging and increase airtightness.
Funding $500,000
Commercial/Industrial projects
The Hive
This 10-storey, mixed-use building will demonstrate an innovative use of timber brace framing to withstand the effects of earthquakes in a tall building application. The design combines commercial space with social spaces such as childcare and wellness areas.
Funding: $500,000
837 Beatty
This six-storey, mixed-use commercial building will demonstrate an innovative use of mass timber-steel hybrid design to renovate a historic building. Built on top of an existing two-storey, historic warehouse, the four-storey mass timber addition will provide more density and new commercial office space for the area.
Funding: $500,000
MAN 6
This three-storey, mixed-use commercial industrial building will demonstrate a hybrid mass timber-concrete application in a tight urban infill site to provide more density and new commercial office space in the Mount Pleasant area of Vancouver.
Funding: $246,000
The Exchange
This four-storey, hybrid mixed-use building will demonstrate the feasibility of local trades, rather than factories, to produce mass timber panels. Local mass timber panel production using available suppliers and trades will create local jobs and reduce supply-stream risks. This project will also be used to educate the insurance and lending industry on mass timber to reduce premiums associated with mass timber buildings. Developers will pursue Step Three of the BC Energy Step Code, the highest level for buildings of this type in the Okanagan.
Funding: $137,000
365 Railway
Sitting atop a two-storey heritage building in Vancouver’s downtown East side, 365 Railway will be a four-storey commercial and industrial addition built using lightweight, prefabricated mass timber systems. By rehabilitating the existing foundation, the project significantly reduces the use of emissions-intensive materials.
Funding: $500,000
Institutional projects
Fire Station #2
The redevelopment of Fire Station #2 will demonstrate how mass timber can be used in a post disaster building designed to withstand emergencies. The project will replace the present one-storey, 353 square-metre building with a two-storey, 2,190 square-metre steel-and-timber post and beam system that will accommodate a fire training tower and emergency vehicles.
Funding: $500,000
Kelowna International Airport Terminal Expansion – Phase I
Mass timber and prefabrication will enable quick, safe and secure construction of this warm and welcoming airport expansion. This project will showcase the benefits of mass timber and a high degree of prefabrication, accelerating construction schedules and addressing the unique challenge of building while the Kelowna airport continues to operate.
Funding: $500,000
Alliance Française
Designed to the equivalent of LEED Gold, this four-storey community and cultural centre will demonstrate some of the first uses of mass timber in an assembly occupancy building in the City of Vancouver with exposed wood throughout the building’s interior.
Funding: $195,000
Metro Vancouver HQ
This six-storey building will demonstrate institutional use of mass timber supporting health and cultural activities. The design will expose as much mass timber as possible to evoke the plank house tradition of the Coast Salish people; space will be used for First Nations Health Authority employees as well as social spaces for gatherings, cultural activities and education. The building will target Rick Hansen Foundation certification for accessibility.
Funding: $500,000
The Confluence
This combined tourist information centre, technology incubator, chamber of commerce office and meeting facilities will be the only Passive House certified institutional building in B.C.’s interior.
Funding: $250,000
Cameron Community Centre and Library
This multi-purpose recreational hub will provide fitness, aquatic and community programming to the fast-growing region of Lougheed in Burnaby. Responding to the city-wide climate crisis declaration, the project will use a hybrid mass timber and steel structural system to support the reduction of embodied emissions.
Funding: $500,000
Marpole Community Centre
This comprehensive mass timber-based development in South Vancouver will replace and double the size of the existing centre built in 1949. The project will use glue-laminated timber for the columns, beams and the signature gently curved roof. To expose much of the building’s mass timber structure, the team will undertake an alternate solution to the Vancouver Building Bylaw.
Funding: $500,000
The Pender Harbour Ocean Discovery Station (PODS)
This marine facility will be the tallest and first Net Zero Carbon mass timber building on the Sunshine Coast. In keeping with the region’s maritime culture, the “pod” design, resembling wooden boats, will attract visitors from land and sea to this research, education and recreation hub. The nearly all-wood structure features glue-laminated and cross-laminated timber and a Douglas fir-clad interior.
Funding: $388,000
Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Centre
This nearly all-wood, three-storey building in Tofino will combine light-frame wood, mass timber, CLT and a geothermally sourced hydronic heating and cooling system. Inspired by traditional First Nation plank house architecture, this development will be a gathering place for sharing, experimenting, learning, and innovating for the Clayoquot region.
Funding: $300,000
The Mass Timber Demonstration Program is led by Forestry Innovation Investment through its Wood First Program. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation.