Vancouver raises height limits for low carbon, mass-timber construction

The blond timbers of The Hive, a 10-storey office building rising above the corner of Sixth Avenue and Keith Drive in Vancouver, certainly stand out against the backdrop of the VCC-Clark SkyTrain station.

Such environmentally friendly mass-timber buildings will soon be able to stand even taller in the skyline with changes approved by Vancouver council on Tuesday to the city’s building rules.

The amendment to Vancouver’s building bylaw raises the allowable height of mass-timber buildings to 18 storeys, in keeping with changes to B.C.’s building code introduced in April, which increased the height from 12 storeys.

“It makes a huge difference,” said Ryan McClanaghan, project architect for The Hive with the Vancouver firm Dialog.

Mass-timber construction, which replaces concrete and steel with engineered timber components — cross-laminated panels and glue-laminated beams assembled from stress-rated lumber — has evolved in stages.

B.C.’s first buildings, such as the 18-storey Brock Commons student residence at the University of B.C., had to be approved by engineers as one-off exceptions to the building code, “and there was a lot of extra work to prove (them) out,” McClanaghan said.

“What (this) does is it reduces the risk of projects,” McClanaghan said. “Previously, you would have to have an ‘alternative solution,’ an engineering judgment by your building-code (officials) or fire engineer to prove out that you’re (safely) outside of the allowable building code.”

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