Mass timber rose to new heights in 2022

2022-12-24T08:00:00-05:00

In 2022, hardly a week passed on Archinect without the hottest construction material of the year making the news: Mass timber was everywhere — in novel conceptual proposals, competition-winning entries, experimental school projects, and, increasingly so, in completed, real-life, and often record-shattering buildings.

And for a good reason. With the world finally realizing the built environment's profound impact on global carbon emissions, more and more architects (and clients!) started ditching the long-time darling concrete due to its abysmal environmental performance and favoring carbon-trapping timber products, which have also been attributed to increased building comfort for its occupants.

As part of Archinect's ongoing 2022 Year in Review series, let's take a look at some of the mass timber story highlights in our news this year.

A selection of completed buildings this year

Ascent tower when it structurally topped out in December 2021. Image courtesy Thornton Tomasetti/Twitte...

KPF unveil their first mass timber tower, one of the tallest in North America

2021-09-28T11:31:00-04:00

KPF has released details of the studio’s first mass timber tower, situated in Vancouver, Canada. At 16 stories tall, the Burrard Exchange tower is expected to be one of the tallest hybrid mass timber buildings in North America, providing 450,000 square feet of office and retail space within the Bentall Centre campus. KPF have served as the design architect for the scheme, while the Vancouver office of Adamson Associates Architects are serving as the architect of record.

The project will be built on one of the last large development sites in Vancouver’s urban core, currently occupied by a multistorey car park. The conversion of the site into retail and office space forms part of a reactivation of the 1.5 million-square-foot Bentall Centre, a major office complex in Vancouver’s financial district which also houses an underground shopping mall.

Burrard Exchange. Image: KPF

The tower’s hybrid, exposed mass timber structure will enclose office floor plates each measuring 30,000 squa...

Archinect - News

Mass timber rose to new heights in 2022

KPF unveil their first mass timber tower, one of the tallest in North America