Canada’s first zero-carbon, mass timber college will be completed in 2023
Multidisciplinary design practice Dialog and Indigenous project-focused Smoke Architecture are collaborating to bring the country’s first zero-carbon, mass timber, higher-education building to Canada by 2023. The project, so far known as the “A Block Expansion Building,” is directed toward environmental awareness and the bringing together of Indigenous and Western cultures.
Community, education and sustainability are at the forefront of the project, which will not only expand the school facilities at Centennial College in Scarborough, Ontario, but will also serve as an example to the rest of the country as the first of its kind in Canada. The building will focus on creating a communal space for the multicultural facility and student body while reinterpreting the Indiginous concepts of connection with nature.
Mass timber is a contemporary category of framing styles in architecture where large solid wood panels are used for the walls, floor and roof. It is a style sometimes used with innovative, sculptural buildings and other types of structures that utilize panels or frames made of solid wood 6 feet or more in width or depth. For the A Block Expansion Building project, the wood will be sustainably sourced and harvested.
According to the project leader from Dialog, the $105-million expansion to the college will demonstrate how a multitude of facilities, including higher education, can contribute to eliminating carbon emissions and maintaining sustainable values. The project design will have the ability to store thousands of tons of carbon and create over 150,000 square feet of additional space without increasing the school’s carbon footprint.
New academic spaces, classrooms, informal meeting spaces for students and new labs for the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science program will be included in the design. The building itself is inspired by the architecture of the Anishinaabe, a group of various Indigenous peoples from North America. There will be an eastern entrance into the multistory structure revolving around an Indigenous Commons and a central courtyard with native flora.
Images via Smoke Architecture
