Mass timber use in mass transit
Four stations along the rapid transit Canada Line from Vancouver to Richmond elevate the mass transit experience with their striking designs and swooping arched wood roof canopies. One of them is the Aberdeen Canada Line station connecting Vancouver to the heart of Richmond’s thriving community, including major amenities such as the shopping mall, Aberdeen Centre.
- Identical solid-wood modular panels formed a gentle curve and fit into a frame of steel channel sections, creating a dramatic superstructure.
- Designers built upon the ‘kit-of-parts’ approach of Expo Line stations and the customized approach used for Millennium Line stations.
- One-of-a-kind striking civic architecture, whether viewed from within or at a distance.
Signature wood roof a unifying theme for the rapid transit stations
The Aberdeen Canada Line station has an economical concrete platform slab, and a steel superstructure above which wood is used to bring warmth and character to the platform canopy. The solution comprises a series of identical solid-wood modular panels fitted into a frame of steel channel sections. The distinctive canopy provides ambience as well as protection from weather along the length of the platform, and thematically connects the four stations on the southern end of the Canada Line.
Prefabricated panelized wood roof sped up construction
The use of prefabricated modular roof panels constructed from Douglas-fir dimensional lumber, packed together on edge, rapidly expedited installation. Each of the four station roofs required only a week and a half to install and contributed to the Canada Line opening three and a half months ahead of schedule.
“When you bring wood into a station it adds a certain touch, which can be very nice. So there is hardly a station we work on now that doesn’t have some measure of wood in it.”
Paul Fast, structural engineer