Mass Timber Market Updates - April 2024 - Week Fifteen

Fresh from the sun-soaked beaches of Bali, I'm thrilled to bring you an episode brimming with the transformative energy of mass timber construction. As we chart the heights of innovation, we'll explore how British Columbia and Ontario are rewriting the rulebook to embrace taller, sustainable wooden structures. This is no ordinary architectural evolution; it's a revolution in our urban landscapes, promising eco-friendly skylines that breathe new life into our cities. Buckle up as we journey through Canada's bold strides in green building, a true testament to the nation's commitment to a sustainable future.

Join me, Paul Kramer, for an exhilarating global tour that celebrates the marriage of technology and nature in the world of construction. Witness the groundbreaking partnership between Japan's Sumitomo Corporation and Brisbane's Cedar Pacific, heralding a dawn of sustainable community development. Stay tuned as we cross continents to the UK, where Automated Architecture (Auar) is redefining the production of housing with their innovative tech. Then, we'll touch down in Vancouver to marvel at the M5 project, a beacon of net-zero carbon ambitions and open-source innovation, set to become one of the tallest mass timber rental housing projects. This episode is more than a conversation; it's an open invitation to join the architects of change and be part of the mass timber movement.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. This is the moment you all have been waiting for. It's time for the global sensation, the one, the only, the undisputed heavyweight podcast in the world the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. And now here's Paul Kramer, your host. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are in the world today, welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. My name's Paul Kramer, your host, and I am back from holidays. Yes, I had a lovely time away in a place called Bali. I didn't make the International Mass Timber Conference because it clashed with my plans to be in Bali. Nonetheless, I hope that you've enjoyed the conference and that you got all the information and made amazing connections and had some great time and great food with all the people from around the world whom I very much hold very near and dear as friends.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Let's have a look at what's making news around the world this week in Mass Timber Construction Land, and the big news that continues to swirl around Mass Timber Construction Land is the changes in BC to the construction codes to build taller with Mass Timber Construction. The news continues to come out. It's quite a progressive step forward and hot off the heels of what is happening in BC is. Ontario has now announced that it's going to have changes to the code and so it's allowing up to 18 stories for mass timber construction, and this is a really good change for the entire region, but also for Canada generally, and it will allow for a greater transformation of using mass timber. Specifically in the code changes using encapsulated mass timber for the updated previous changes from six stories, which were done way back in 2014. So congratulations to everybody involved in the project to transform the codes. It's a great achievement Coming out of Sumitomo Corporation, which is one of Japan's largest corporations.

Speaker 1: 2:39

It has just created a joint venture with a Brisbane property firm called Cedar Pacific to work on a project. The partnership will allow both of the companies to develop expertise in leading-edge sustainability practices while creating communities that are desirable as places to live. According to the report, the deal concludes the first tranche of funding for Cedar Pacific's inaugural build-to to rent strategy, after the company, founded in Switzerland, launched this vehicle in May last year in 2023. So there is a newly formed 1.2 million Australian dollars part of a 790 million dollar joint venture approach going on here at the moment to do the build to rent using mass timber construction Moving across to the UK and automated architecture. Auar is a UK-based technology company that's looking to use data-driven learning and generative design to build distributed micro factory networks for sustainable timber housing. The founder and the chief technology officer, giles, was an associate professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, ucl.

Speaker 1: 3:59

In an online media report, the organization was asked a series of questions about how it plans to transform the way that construction happens and it has responded in a wonderful article which is available at the Mass Timber Construction Journal LinkedIn feed. So if you go along you'll be able to read all about it. And we are skipping all over the place a little bit today. But if we go back to Vancouver and to Mount Pleasant specifically, m5 is a project which is a 25-story mass timber rental housing project which will be one of the tallest in the world, is going to be situated on the main alley, a tech campus of Mount Pleasant area in Vancouver. The structure will be built an existing surface parking lot and it will be a net zero life cycle carbon tower that means it's being designed to minimize operational and embodied elements of carbon. The project proposed by West Bank Corp is a part of a green light recently given to the Vancouver Council for the 260 feet tall, 210 room rental rooms, apartments. The intention of M5 is to create a mass timber tower that has a replicatable prototype to help British Columbia achieve significant reductions in life cycle carbon emissions while addressing the crisis of affordable housing. It's an open source prototype for mass timber. The article says open source, meaning we are willing to share our drawings and ideas to the public at large. We are proposing that this project is also net zero carbon and a hybrid mass timber building, which will provide 67 timber for the total project.

Speaker 1: 5:37

So that's it, folks. That's what's making news around the world this week in mass timber construction land. We look forward to catching up with you next week. Thank you very much for allowing me to have a holiday. It's been the first time in a long time, especially in four years, and I really do hope you had a great time in portland. I look forward to catching up with you next week. Don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode of the update, and I look forward to catching up with you soon. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. This is paul kramer signing off on the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. So Thank you.