The University of British Columbia held a “topping out” ceremony this month for a new 18-story wood-frame student housing building.
Clean Technica reports that the 178-foot tower just outside of Vancouver is a hybrid system comprised of cross-laminated timber (CLT) floor slabs, glulam columns, steel connectors, and concrete cores. The interior of the building is under construction now, and the completion is scheduled for May 2017. It will have 33 four-bedroom units and 272 studio units.
By using wood in the construction of UBC’s Brock Commons, the new student residence will store over 1,750 metric tons of global-warming related greenhouse gases. This is roughly the same as removing 511 cars from Canadian roads every year. Recognizing forestry’s central role in an innovative fight against climate change, the Canadian government is promoting the country’s richest natural resource as a high-value, high-tech solution.
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