Designed by Bogdan Newman Caranci with Blackwell as structural engineer, 77 Wade is a seven-storey mass timber office building under construction in Toronto.
TEXT AND DIAGRAMS J. David Bowick
The most novel architectural material in Canada right now is an old one?wood. But when made into mass timber beams and panels, the age-old material gains structural and fire-resistance qualities that open up new possibilities for construction. We asked structural engineer David Bowick to walk us through the basics of working with mass timber structures. Here?s what he told us.
Mass timber construction?which makes use of glue laminated (glulam) beams and columns with products like cross-laminated timber (CLT), nail-laminated timber (NLT), and dowel-laminated timber (DLT)?is in its early days. With concrete and steel, there are clear templates for commercial construction?the 9×9 bay concrete flat slab, with 4 metres from floor to floor, and for big box retail, the 9×12 bay with steel beams and open web steel joists. With mass timber, it seems every project is constructed using a unique structural system.  There?s an opportunity to go beyond purely pragmatic concerns with mass timber. The uniqueness of the system can become a design goal. What are the baseline rules of working with this family of materials" Mass timber systems follow inherently different rules than concrete and steel. Square bays are effective when you have a system that has similar strength and stiffness...