At 77 metres high, the University of Toronto’s 14-floor Academic Wood Tower (AWT) will be the tallest mass timber building in Canada when its classroom doors open in 2026. The tower is novel not just because it is a timber hybrid structure, but also because it is being constructed atop the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sports, a busy facility at the University of Toronto’s main campus. The timber is required “to do a lot of things mass timber really doesn’t like to do,” said Ryan Mitchell of MJMA Architecture and Design, which is in joint venture with Patkau Architects on the project. …Another hurdle overcome was with the foundations which were designed for a steel structure, not a heavy mass timber one, when the sports facility was constructed a decade ago below the now rising wood tower, he told a packed room at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.