Ontario Construction News staff writer
The government of Canada has announced it will invest $648,250 for Fast + Epp, a structural engineering firm, to construct their new Vancouver head office, a four-storey hybrid mass timber and steel building.
“This project is an excellent example of an innovative, sustainable and high-performance wood building. It showcases technologically advanced wood products and systems, and how mass timber components work together for optimal designs that can be easily replicated,” said said Lynn Embury-Williams, executive director of Wood WORKS! BC.
“Projects such as this will address today’s urgent demand for more efficient construction using sustainable building materials, toward a goal of carbon-neutral structures that will positively transform our built environment.”
This project is a highly visible head office building that showcases innovative mass timber design and construction technologies and is highly replicable across the country. This demonstrates Canada’s leadership in low-rise non-residential wood construction while helping to reduce our carbon footprint and contributing to Canada’s growing bioeconomy.
Funding will come from Natural Resources Canada’s Green Construction through Wood program which encourages the use of wood in non-traditional construction projects, such as tall and low-rise non-residential buildings and bridges. The program aims to position Canada as a world leader in innovative timber construction systems and technologies and in the low-carbon economy.
“Wood is being used more and more in building bigger and taller buildings, and we’re leading the world at it. Creating new markets for Canadian timber supports our forestry workers, creates jobs and gets us to net zero,” said Seamus O’Regan, federal minister of natural resources.
