Canadian engineers are claiming to have built the world's tallest wooden building.
The 18-storey structure will be a student residence at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The University says the 53 m building, Brock Commons, is the first mass wood, steel and concrete hybrid project taller than 14 storeys in the world.
It has a concrete podium and two concrete cores, with 17 storeys of cross-laminated-timber floors supported on glue-laminated wood columns. The cladding for the façade is made with 70 per cent wood fibre.
University President Santa Ono said the university had a number of wooden buildings including the Engineering Student Centre, the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability, and the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility.
“Wood is increasingly recognised as an important, innovative and safe building material choice," he said.
Cees de Jager, general manager of the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, said taller wood buildings offer tremendous economic and environmental benefits.
"The lessons learned at Brock Commons will help transform the built environment in Canada and around the world," he said.
"In fact, we are already seeing interest in the systems used here for projects in the US, Japan and China.”
He said wood stores, rather than emits, carbon dioxide so that, by using wood, the impact is a reduction of 2,432 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide compared to other construction materials, the equivalent of taking around 500 cars off the road for a year.
The $51.5 million building was designed by Acton Ostry Architects in collaboration with structural engineer Fast + Epp.
With the outer structure now complete, the construction focus is now on interior elements, expected to be completed in May 2017 with more than 400 students scheduled to move into the building in September 2017.
It will also act as a 'living laboratory' allowing interdisciplinary research and educational projects undertaken by UBC faculty, staff and students.
[The Brock Commons building in Canada is approaching completion. Photo: UBC]
Infrastructure will be a major topic of discussion at the Australian Engineering Conference 2016 in Brisbane on November 23-25.