For the better part of a decade, B.C.’s schools have featured more innovative, eco-friendly and flexible designs. Today’s schools are more versatile and adaptable, offer ample daylight and are focused on health and well-being, along with safety and better seismic performance. Increasingly these schools are being built with locally supplied wood products and advanced hybrid-mass timber prefabricated construction. That’s the finding of a recent report Wood Use in British Columbia Schools, authored by B.C.-based architecture firm thinkspace and structural engineering firm Fast + Epp. The report highlights several B.C. schools built by an expanding roster of timber experts in the province including architects, engineers, fabricators, contractors and building specialists. The report cites numerous benefits to building schools with wood, especially in B.C. It can be provincially sourced from healthy and certified forests, while also supporting communities across B.C. and the provincial economy.