BCIT Tall Timber Student Housing

This 12-storey mass-timber building will provide 470 BCIT students with affordable on-campus housing while showcasing the future of building technology using sustainable systems and local materials.

Specific sustainability features were implemented to meet BC’s Energy Step Code 4. The high-performance envelope is designed to reduce heat transfer with a unitized façade system that increases air tightness and minimizes thermal bridging, a low window to wall ratio using triple-glazed windows, and increased insulation in the roof and walls. Hot water demands will be delivered by energy-efficient air source heat pumps that use CO2 as their refrigerant.

The Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) point-supported structure consists of mass-timber floors supported on steel Hollow Structural Sections (HSS) columns. The steel cores were fabricated and erected in 5/6-storey increments and the CLT panels were prefabricated off site at a faster and lower cost, thereby reducing the project’s carbon footprint.