Vancouver, Canada greenlights 19-story mass timber tower

By Kim Slowey
Construction Drive
January 10, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

Vancouver’s Chief Building Official’s Office has approved plans for the 232-foot-tall, 19-story Terrace House, a condominium high-rise that will be the tallest hybrid mass timber building in North America, according to Building Design + Construction. Exposed mass timber, a design feature that has never before been permitted in a building this tall in the U.S. or Canada, makes up the top seven stories of the building. The design feature required project officials to use performance-based fire and engineering tests that evaluated standard and post-earthquake fire risks to meet the city’s building codes, proving that the building is as safe as one made with conventional materials. British Columbia building officials granted an earlier exception for Brock Commons …currently the tallest mass timber building in the world — in part because the project team agreed to cover exposed timber with fire-rated gypsum wallboard.

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