Brock Commons Tallwood House is an 18-storey student residence at the Point Grey Campus of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...

(UBC) in Canada. At the time it was opened, it was the tallest mass timber structure in the world. It is the first phase of a complex at Brock Commons. The Brock Hall Annex located at the site will be demolished to make way for a building in phase 2. The 1958 mosaic mural "Symbols of Education" by Lionel and Patricia Thomas, commissioned by the university's 1958 graduating class, will be moved as a result.

Construction

It was built via the Tall Wood Building Demonstration Initiative (TWBDI) of

Natural Resources Canada Natural Resources Canada (NRCan; french: Ressources naturelles Canada; french: RNCan, label=none)Natural Resources Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Natural Resources (). is the dep ...

that in October 2017 led to the establishment of the Green Construction Through Wood (GCWood) program. Acton Ostry Architects designed the building with structural engineering firm

Fast + Epp Fast + Epp is an international structural engineering firm headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia with offices in Edmonton, Calgary, New York, Seattle, and Darmstadt, Germany. The company first achieved international acclaim following the desi ...

, which received consultation services from Architekten Hermann Kaufmann of

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label= Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, for tall-wood construction. Before raising the building, a two-storey mock-up was built on site to test wood-to-wood connections and the stability of the structure. Site construction began in November 2015, and

topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlaye ...

in August 2016. Construction of the structure and facade began in June 2016 and was completed by a work crew of nine individuals in 57 days, rising at a rate of about 2 floors per week. The construction team described the assembly procedure to be "like Lego". The building was subject to the 2012 British Columbia Building Code, which limits wood buildings to six storeys. This necessitated a special approval, as well as two structural reviews. The first review, completed by Merz Kley Partner ZT GmbH of

Dornbirn Dornbirn () is a city in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg. It is the administrative centre for the district of Dornbirn, which also includes the town of Hohenems, and the market town Lustenau. Dornbirn is the largest city in Vorarlb ...

, Austria, focussed on the timber structure. The second was a seismic review conducted by Read Jones Christoffersen Consulting Engineers of Vancouver. The project cost $51.5 million to complete, and was designed to satisfy

LEED Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...

standards.

Description

The building has a capacity to house 404 students, primarily for graduate and upper-year

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

students, with a floor space of . It consists of 33 four-bedroom units, 272

studios A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery ( ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

, study spaces, and lounges. The top floor is devoted to a lounge. The frame is built of pre-fabricated engineered timber manufactured by

Penticton Penticton ( ) is a city in the Okanagan Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, situated between Okanagan and Skaha lakes. In the 2016 Canadian Census, its population was 33,761, while its census agglomeration The ce ...

-based Structurlam, and the structure also consists of a concrete

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

and steel components. The floors above grade are made of five-ply cross-laminated timber, anchored to the glulam columns using steel connectors. The latter were used to comply with the 2015 National Building Code seismic design requirements. The roof is steel-framed, composed of pre-fabricated steel beams supporting a metal deck. The structure is anchored by two concrete cores spanning its height for lateral stability that also function as the staircases for the building. The wood structure is panelled with

drywall Drywall (also called plasterboard, dry lining, wallboard, sheet rock, gypsum board, buster board, custard board, and gypsum panel) is a panel made of calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum), with or without additives, typically extruded between thic ...

, chosen to satisfy fire safety codes and more quickly obtain municipal permit approvals.

Legacy

As a result of TWBDI and the structure's construction, amendments to the 2020 and 2025 National Building Code of Canada were proposed to permit the construction of tall wood buildings. The British Columbia building code was amended in March 2019 to allow the construction of mass timber frame buildings of up to 12 storeys. The building is fitted with

accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acc ...

s, inclinometers, moisture meters, and vertical shortening

string potentiometer A string potentiometer is a transducer used to detect and measure linear position and velocity using a flexible cable and spring-loaded spool. Other common names include "string pot", "cable-extension transducer", "draw wire sensor", and "yo-yo se ...

s. The data collected will be analyzed by a research team at UBC to determine the building's performance relative to its design.

References

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External links

Living at Brock Commons - Tallwood House
at the

Brock Commons Tallwood House
at University of British Columbia Sustainability
Brock Commons Tallwood House
at Naturally Wood
Overviewdesign process
an
construction process
University of British Columbia Buildings and structures in Greater Vancouver Wooden buildings and structures in Canada Buildings and structures completed in 2017