VANCOUVER — GBL Architects is celebrating the completion of Canada’s first tall timber Passive House building, which features a unique façade that’s envisioned as a woven cedar basket.
Created for the BC Indigenous Housing Society (BCIHS) the all-electric 81-unit purpose-built rental housing project comprises a child care facility, studio units and several three- and four-bedroom suites for Vancouver’s Indigenous community.
The nine-storey Chief Leonard Geroge Building achieved a 75 per cent reduction in embodied carbon and GHG emissions through the use of locally sourced mass timber floor panels, pre-manufactured CLT envelope panels and Passive House certification, a release notes.
The woven basket exterior is a celebration of traditional Coast Salish basketry, one of the oldest art forms on the Northwest Coast. These baskets are expressions of cultural identity, women’s leadership, knowledge of local ecologies and the continuity of teachings passed from one generation to the next, the release adds.
The building is situated in Vancouver’s Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood, east of Chinatown and Strathcona and is in proximity to Commercial Drive.
The building reflects BCIHS’s four pillars: good governance, economy, community services and culture.
Amenities include a seventh-floor outdoor space with views toward the North Shore mountains and Vancouver Harbour, a child care on the ground floor and units that accommodate large Indigenous families.
The landscape design incorporates drought-resistant and medicinal plants. The building will also provide space for cultural programming, including drum workshops and language classes.
The new structure replaced the previous apartment building, which was destroyed by a fire in 2017, displacing dozens of families, many of whom lost their entire possessions, the release describes.
“The massing and unit layout are optimized to utilize standard cross-laminated timber floor panel dimensions,” the release reads. “Custom-designed cross-laminated envelope panels were robotically pre-manufactured and then combined with steel columns and a concrete core to complete the structural design. Optimizing south-facing windows takes advantage of passive heating in winter, while fewer windows on east- and west-facing façades prevent overheating in summer.”
The thermal-bridge-free design, including externally supported balconies, also helps achieve an airtight envelope.