Mass timber is the theme of an ideas competition focusing on tackling housing affordability and climate change in B.C.
The competition is open to small and emerging companies, explained Richmond resident Travis Hanks, former Urbanarium ideas competition participant and current competition co-chair.
This is Urbanarium's fourth affordable housing ideas competition, titled "Decoding Timber Towers," and it is now open for registration.
The competition is looking for ideas for using mass timber that can address both housing affordability and climate change, which Hanks calls "wicked problems."
These are the "most existential challenges" Canadians are facing right now, he added. The competition is a space to open up conversations and ideas around how mass timber and wood can address these issues simultaneously.
Mass timber is made from layers of small wood pieces, compressed and bonded together to form larger and stronger building materials for construction.
Over the past five to 10 years, there has been research on projects using more mass timber in their builds, with studies showing how it can help reduce carbon emissions versus using concrete counterparts, according to Hanks.
However, even with new research and new building codes to allow mass timber, there are still "relatively few projects" using it.
"They're kind of rare projects and they come with a premium because they're more expensive than concrete," said Hanks.
"Decoding Timber Towers" is meant to generate ideas beyond just designing a building - it's also about supply chains, the fabrication process and where the wood is coming from, Hanks told the Richmond News.
"If we can sort of create a greater demand for these kinds of projects, that will, in turn, shift the overall industry away from concrete and towards more wood, creating a knock-on effect of a lower carbon kind of building."
The competition this year will look at a fictional transit-oriented area (TOA), which applies to many municipalities, including Richmond.
A TOA is a neighbourhood or district designed for easier access to public transportation, centred around major transit stops like SkyTrain or bus hubs. The province passed legislation last year to allow densification in TOAs.
From ideas to policy changes
Ideas and proposals from the competition won't be directly used for projects in B.C. immediately.
Hanks describes the ideas competition as a way for designers, policy makers and community members to "look at things from a somewhat removed level" and a bit farther away from the building process.
"What if something were a little bit different? What are some things that could possibly change to help us be able to solve these problems more easily?"
In the past, ideas and proposals from the competition were discussed by planners, designers and developers and played a role in creating real policy changes in municipalities, he added.
As a result, these ideas have manifested into solutions for real projects.
"These are all things that, once you step outside of the everyday occurrences, you can look at them more completely and start to have a conversation about what else we can do to solve these 'wicked problems,'" said Hanks.
The first Urbanarium ideas competition was in 2017, with the theme being "Missing Middle," referring to the missing middle-income housing.
Hanks became involved with Urbanarium during the first year the ideas competition was held. He and his wife were the winners that year.
"We were working in housing at kind of a small and missing middle housing scale," said Hanks, adding the theme felt like it was "tailor made" for them, given the projects they were working on at that time.
"The competition was a way to kind of put all those ideas together in one package that really looked forward to the future.
"It wasn't just about what you could do at the time, which is how a build project works, but thinking about the future and what could be ... if things were a little bit different."
The competition, he added, is about more than the prizes.
Rather, small and emerging firms can get exposure, get their name out and engage with the public on a larger scale.
For more information and to register for the Urbanarium's fourth ideas competition, "Decoding Timber Towers" click here.
Registration for the competition is open until May 2. The winners will be announced in September.
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