VANCOUVER — It’s made from mass timber. It meets Passivhaus standards. Construction componentry is modular and prefabricated largely using robotic technology. The project addresses Indigenous social housing needs. No wonder the Chief George Leonard Building was unanimously approved when it came before Vancouver City Council in the spring of 2021. …Designed by Vancouver firm GBL Architects and developed by the non-profit M’akola Development Services… The nine-storey, 85,500-square-foot affordable housing complex replaces a smaller unit owned by the Vancouver Native Housing Society destroyed by fire back in 2017. GBL describes the building as, “Canada’s first mixed-use tall mass timber Passive House building.” …The combination of Passivhaus standards and utilization of mass timber has reduced operational and embodied carbon by 75 per cent, GBL says. …The supply and installation of the mass timber envelope system leveraged the product and technology platform from Vancouver-based Intelligent City called Platforms-for-Life™.