Wood wins out: architecture school embraces wood construction.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: DESIGN-BUILD

Construction of Sudbury's Laurentian School of Architecture is providing an opportunity to introduce a new material, cross-laminated timber (CLT), into Ontario building practices.

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In August, the Thunder Bay-based Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy (CRIBE) announced it is contributing $350,000 to fund the construction of a demonstration building at the school that will incorporate CLT into its design.

It would be the first major use of CLT, an emerging building material, in Ontario. Research gleaned from the demonstration building would be used to encourage more construction with CLT throughout the province, with the added bonus of boosting its latent forestry industry.

"What we're seeing is a slow and steady recovery, and we're beginning to form an understanding of the critical role projects such as this play in assisting our industry to change and adapt," said Lorne Morrow, the CEO of CRIBE, a non-profit agency created to support the commercial end of the forestry industry.

Comprised of 2X4s and 2X6s pressed together to form large solid blocks or sheets of wood, CLT is strong, fire resistant and can be used as walls, floors or roof panels. It is now being widely used across Europe, in buildings as tall as 11 storeys.

In Canada, CLT is only produced in British Columbia and Quebec, but Morrow believes that could change once people see the added value and spinoffs CLT can provide to the forestry industry.

"If you can take 2X6s and make them into a CLT panel, you're adding value and you're also supporting industry; you're diversifying it away from total dependence on house starts in the U.S.," he said.

In Ontario, the use of wood is still limited by the province's building code, which views wood as too flammable a material to be used extensively throughout a building's construction. Its use is restricted to two storeys in institutional buildings and four storeys in residential structures.

The demonstration building, which will house the school's library and theatre, located in the third wing of the school complex, will test the best and safest use of wood products, Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci said during the funding announcement.

Expressing optimism that the building would illustrate the potential of CLT in Ontario construction, he suggested it may have a hand in evolving the building code to encompass a greater use of wood.

"I think this demonstration project situated here at the school of...