oN5: Five part technical bulletin series

oN5 building construction, mass timber panel flown into place | Photo credit: KK Law. 

Innovative mass timber design in an urban infill office building

Located in the Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver—a community filled with architecture and design firms—oN5 is an office building typology which can make it easier for cities and developers to enable building on urban in-fill lots. This office building combines high performance, mass timber construction, new approaches to insulative CLT assemblies and damage-resistant seismic design. The unique features of this project are also possible due to the delivery method used by the team which is based on multi-disciplinary collaboration. The five technical bulletins found below provide information on the different aspects of this innovative project.

 

Introduction

Introduction to the innovative wood technology/design and construction methods used in this project.

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Regulatory perspectives: Urban in-fill/mid-block locations

oN5 was planned as a mass timber building that would incorporate a number of innovations on a technically challenging site. Given the novelty of the technologies, early engagement with the City of Vancouver was essential to explain the systems and their applicability to mass timber construction in British Columbia.

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High-performance low carbon construction

Designed to passive house principles, oN5 achieves an airtight and thermally efficient envelope for a commercial building using prefabricated CLT panels and a high performance, triple-glazed curtain wall system.

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Off-site construction experience

The timber elements were prefabricated to be installed directly off the truck. This included the fully finished mass timber exterior envelope, the CLT floor panels and elevator core as well as the light-wood frame partitions and wood stairs.

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On-site construction and project delivery

oN5’s project delivery method directly linked design and construction through a highly integrative planning process based on close collaboration between the architect, structural engineer and construction manager, design-assist from key experts, trades and suppliers, and the use of building information modelling (BIM)-based virtual design and construction (VDC) from conceptual design through to fabrication and on-site project delivery.

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oN5 top floor mass timber floor panel being flown in
oN5 Building

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1 Lonsdale Avenue Commercial Building exterior
1 Lonsdale Avenue

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CTA CLT Swanky
Mass timber

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Mountain Equipment Co-op HQ interior with employees working at desks
False Creek Flats Office Building

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