Innovations With Carbon Accounting Tool and New CLT Product + Modular Multifamily Design Examples | SLB Newsletter July 2021

As reported in the Architect’s Newspaper, Michael Green Architecture recently released plans for Baker’s Place, a three-volume, mixed-used tall timber project in Madison, Wisconsin. Backed by developer, The Neutral Project, Baker’s Place will range from nine to 14 stories and feature CLT structural systems. The project, which is currently under review by municipal authorities, will also incorporate Passive House and WELL Building Standards to further reduce embodied and operational carbon.

Read more about the project and see renderings here.

Developer Westbank Corp. has submitted plans for Prototype, a 21-story, mass timber residential tower in Vancouver, as a first step in a concerted effort to rapidly expand the number of mid- and tall hybrid buildings in the city. The project, which is being designed by Henriquez Partners Architects, is backed in part by the British Columbia government’s new Mass Timber Demonstration Program, which seeks to promote and expand mass timber manufacturing and use in the province.

Westbank’s head, Ian Gillespie, expects the project to create multifold solutions to ongoing challenges in the city, as it will minimize embodied and eliminate operational emissions, generate demand for the provincial timber industry, and add new affordable, transit-oriented housing via its partnership with BC Housing. As importantly, Gillespie hopes the building will help to spur Vancouver’s transition from conventional construction to mass timber, ultimately by building “as many hybrid buildings as possible, with zero operational emissions.”

The wood tower, which is currently under review by the city, will require some zoning variances to integrate residential. Pending these approvals, the Westbank team envisions breaking ground as early as 2022.

Read more about the project and Vancouver’s push for mass timber construction here.

Canadian Forest Industries (CFI) recently featured the commentary and lessons learned of Lacey Rose, a Labrador native who has worked as a Registered Professional Forester in Ontario since 2008. Rose stresses that Canadian foresters are required by law to ensure that managed forests—90% of which are on public lands—successfully regenerate, and that any harvesting is preceded by careful consideration of ecological, social, and economic objectives. Canada currently harvests less than 0.5% of available public forest area annually, with the offtake converted into wood products that continue to store carbon.

XL Construction, Aedis Architects, and Daedalus Structural Engineering have partnered to develop TimberQuest, a new CLT product that enables highly efficient, prefabricated modular school construction. TimberQuest’s large, structural slabs are precision-made and converted into prefabricated walls and roof panels off-site, which are then assembled as kits on-site. The construction method allows for significant time savings, while the material brings immediate biophilic benefits to students and teachers and sustainability and carbon benefits to communities.

TimberQuest structures, which vary in size from 3,000 to 9,000 square feet and offer nine different interior layouts, have been pre-checked and approved by the California Division of the State Architect, meaning that they can be permitted in as little as one day for use in California public school and community college projects.

Read more about TimberQuest here.

Perkins&Will, Building Transparency, and C Change Labs are joining forces to develop the Tally Climate Action Tool (tallyCAT), a new, plugin tool for designing low-carbon buildings.

tallyCAT will offer real-time access to material performance and product information, including Building Transparency’s existing global catalogue of Environmental Product Declarations, making it easier for designers and specifiers to make low-carbon material choices. The tool will be the first of its kind and fill a persistent, ongoing knowledge and accessibility gap for the design industry.

tallyCAT’s development is being funded by a $460,000 CleanBC Building Innovation Fund (CBBIF) grant, and once launched, tallyCAT will be available globally.

Read more about tallyCAT here.