Wood Innovation Centre: Next Good News Story

Thursday, March 03, 2011 10:10 AM

Prince George, B.C. - B.C.'s Forests, Lands, and Mines Minister, Pat Bell, says he expects the long-talked about Wood Innovation Design Centre to be the next good news story for the city and region...

Speaking on the Meisner program on 93.1 CFIS FM this morning, the local MLA says, "I think we're getting our ducks lined up, and now that we've got a new Premier, we can get moving on this thing and it will be the next great news story for Prince George, right behind the cancer clinic."

"As we move through to the end of the year, it's going to be a priority," says Bell. "It's in Christy's platform - very clearly articulated there - Shirley and I have done lots of work on it and we've got a variety of options to take forward, so I think, hopefully, in the next six or eight weeks we'll be able to present that to Treasury Board...and to Cabinet and get it into the mix for a fall, at least, announcement."

He says there has been a lot of interest from the private sector, with companies coming forward to express their interest in purchasing (through strata title) some space, or renting. Bell says both the downtown core and UNBC are being looked at as potential locations for the centre. He admits the arguments for Cranbrook hill are compelling, given the land would be free and any engineering program encompassed in the facility would be close to the student pool. However, the PG-Mackenzie MLA says his preference is downtown, "To have a facility that brings together a lot of people into the downtown core - starts creating that traffic - it creates other business opportunities in the downtown core and helps clean that up."

"There are three potential locations in the downtown core that are big enough to locate something like this and really, at this point, we are looking for one of those three options."

As for the building, itself, Bell says he'd really like to see the Innovation Design Centre built from cross-laminate timber - to have it be a 'demonstration project' and show the world the large-scale construction possibilities with wood. Presently, the largest wood building is a nine-storey structure in London, England. Bell jokes that, "In a dream world, I'd love to see a 10-storey CLT building because that would mean we could say it was the highest building in the world, but it will be what it will be." He says whether it's three, six, or eight-stories, he expects there may be some retail space on the main floor, then office space, and possibly some housing on higher levels.

A cross-laminate manufacturing plant is under construction in Okanagan Falls and is expected to be up-and-running in the latter portion of the year, which would coincide nicely with the announcement of the Wood Innovation Design Centre for Prince George before the year is out.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2011 10:10 AM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: He spoke on March 3 2011 11:48 AM

Pat, I think your gonna have to aim a bit higher, The tallest wooden structure for human occupancy is in Norway at 144 ft and it is 13 storey. Currently under design is a 16 story wooden structure in Russia.

Isn't the internet excellent

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 11:48 AM

Good. Finally a bit more sense is coming out in public. I am not sure why people have been beating around the bush up to this point. A bit more meat on the skeleton of an idea may cause some interest groups to start acting a bit differently, but then I think it never hurts to have reality hit you earlier than later so that one does not procratinate too long and spend too much effort on a direction which may just never materialize for some very sound reasons.

In my mind, wherever such a centre goes, it will be a significant benefit to the City as a whole. In the end, I think it will be more of a benefit not only to the UNBC but also the City if it is built where it naturally belongs, the main campus. Spend the money on developing a "green" serviced research park and that should have future spinoffs that just would not happen in the centre of the city due to the light industrial nature of some of those types of facilites.

BTW, higher is not better..... bigger is not better ...... a quality, well designed functionally as well as aesthetically and as "green" as possible would be a much better "showpiece" to people in the world.

Build as 10 storey building ... next year someone will build an 11 storey building and all the bragging rights will go out the window.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 11:50 AM

Okay, so this year someone even beat the 11 storey building ... LOL

Posted by: He spoke on March 3 2011 11:54 AM

i think we will need to use top self material to deal with the loading, It will likely need to be parallam but with no voids at all. It will be relying on good resin to densify the body of the member.

Straight wood timbers can take a lot of load, but it will likely fail in the connections.

The use of cross laminated products will be useful to obtain the diagonal loads.

Should be interesting on how the engineers get through this design. I think it will be a great project for downtown. So don't give the land a way, Danny boy.

Posted by: He spoke on March 3 2011 11:59 AM

It needs to severely funded by the government from Provincial, Federal to make this happen. A ten story building the size of the Permanent Tower, will likely be in the cost range of 40 million dollars plus. The design needs to be aggressive and inovative. No hidden steel columns and concrete core, a true wood structure.

Posted by: verballabel on March 3 2011 12:47 PM

Four-five story building with storefront on the ground floor street face. We don't need to build a huge building like gus posted.

Posted by: verballabel on March 3 2011 12:50 PM

Could have an interior similar to this.

http://tiny.cc/7ombl

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 1:14 PM

The tallest buildings built of wood will be achieved in a method which relates very closely to the structure of most VERY tall buildings. Those buildings aere all relatively "light" buildings of a skeletal construction with shear stresses being handled through cross bracing more than solid shear walls.

The proposed building in Norway looks like it will be designed on those basic structural principles.

Here is the project sheet from the Architectural firm that won the design competition. It is in the planning stages according to the project sheet. Notice the desing approach taken. Post and beam with diagonal bracing creating exterior "trusses".
[url]http://www.reiulframstadarkitekter.no/public/projects/18barentshus.pdf[url]

Here is the USA site for Norwegian Foreign Affairs
http://www.norway.org/News_and_events/Culture/Architecture--Design/Worlds-Tallest-Wooden-Building

And here is the China site of Norwegian Foreign Affairs
http://www.norway.cn/News_and_events/Culture/Architecture/Award-winning-Norwegian-Architect-to-Beijing

The reason the latter site is of interest is because the "award winning" architect for the proposed tall wood building is giving a presentation to a seminar geared to architects. In other words, the people who have some influence in bringing forward different design approaches in China.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 1:19 PM

Yes, verballabel, that looks like a good use of wood in a relatively "honest" structural expression that would give a pleasant surrounding to be in.

I think there is a role for cross laminated panels.

I do not think using them as a structural deck of cards will allow them to achieve the tallest wood structured building, however.

Posted by: jakeadoo on March 3 2011 1:29 PM

What is a Wood Innovation Centre?Sounds to me from the article like its just a fancy name for an office/residential/retail building,constructed from wood!

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 1:35 PM

BTW, if you look at the building section of that 16+ storey building, the 6th, 7th, and 8th storeys have a small theatre 3 storey high lecture/performance theatre.

It will be interesting to see if this building will be constructed and how it will compare to the original design. How the building standards authority in Norway will look at this from an occupant safety point of view as well as a structural integrety under fire point of view will be interesting.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 2:12 PM

http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_38884.htm

A Chinese structure that has a claim to the world's tallest wooden structure in measured height.

It has withstood the test of time ..... around a thousand years to be exact.

Posted by: He spoke on March 3 2011 2:27 PM

nope we will build it PG Style! We will stack up a whole bunch of prefab and call it a day.

Posted by: rattyboy on March 3 2011 3:07 PM

The structure would be more cost efficient on campus from a pure $,Cents look at thing. Not to mention, if you ask the students where this should be, they will tell you AT THE UNIVERSITY. Ask the user group!!! If it goes down town, how much more tax dollars, grants, subsudies and tax abatments will go into the commonwealth group of companies to increase their proffits.

Posted by: trueblue2 on March 3 2011 4:17 PM

Wow.
When did the idea of building this centre change to include a possible on-campus location? I recall all those newspaper headlines around the buying of the PG Hotel and other buildings adjacent, to be cleared and used for the wood innovation centre. There was never a mention of a possible UNBC location.

Posted by: northernjoe on March 3 2011 9:23 PM

Holy crow. If this gets built downtown, sorry but WTF. It needs to be on the hill, transportation needs to be considered. Anyone who thinks it should be downtown is on crack. Seriously.

Posted by: Palopu on March 3 2011 9:50 PM

Amazing how a little announcement by a Premier hugging Pat Bell, can morph into a huge construction project costings millions of dollars.

People in this town never cease to amaze me. Always hell bent to spend taxpayers money,but rarely their own.

After using wood around the world for thousands of years, Prince George is now going to build a Wood Innovation Centre, and learn how to work with wood. What next a Potatoe Innovation Centre, a Cabbage Innovation Centre??

Maybe we couldl have a River Water Innovation Centre.

Maybe you people could spend some of your time wondering why the Cancer Clinic is being built with metal studs, rather than wood. This is happening after Mr. Bell stated that he was embarressed about the Duchess Park School being built with metal studs.

Lets see what kind of studs they use for the New Police Station.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 9:56 PM

"When did the idea of building this centre change to include a possible on-campus location?"

Well, I think it happened just about the time when the germ of an idea started to be looked at seriously with the people who would be operating the centre. I mean, they are probably still discussing exactly what this centre will look like from the point of view of its function, how much it will cost to operate, and future projections of associated programs if the centre is successful.

I think it is fair to say that there are two things at play. The needs of the University versus the needs of those in the city who think anything will help the downtown are tugging at the same dollars.

Just look at the operations of Chances. As soon as the artificial barrier of government regulation was removed, Chances was removed and added to the Casino. Having a UNBC presence downtown for that type of program will increase the operating costs in the same fashion.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 10:12 PM

I think a river water innovation centre is a brilliant idea.

Having commercial building move from steel to wood studs would be as stupid and difficult to accomplish as moving from wood to steel in single family residential construction. That attempt was made some 40 years ago. From a structural and cost point of view it would make tons of sense to go to steel joists. Just as much as it would make tons of sense to go to wood truss floors.

People like doing things the way they are used to. Building techniques for single family detached dwellings vary from country to country. It takes a long time to change what people are used to.

The greatest barrier is probably the tradespeople. The system they are used to is the best system there is from their point of view.

This fellow at UNBC is trying to introduce concrete blocks made with sawdust or shavings as an aggregate to replace fine stone. In Europe they make blocks that have light weight additives that can be cut with a simple handsaw. Ytong has been used for 40 years at least. Try to introduce that into North America and you encounter what I consider to be unreasonable resistance.

The construction industry is a very conservative industry. I do not blame them. They are interested in building something where they have a good control over potential failure. They are interested in risk reduction, not innovation that will send them closer to the increased risk side of the equation. It is their insurance rates that are on the line. MLAs are removed from that kind of risk. Their risk is the risk of not being elected, which is a completely different risk.

Posted by: weezerfan on March 3 2011 10:14 PM

Duchess Park was built with metal studs due to regulations on using FSC certified wood in LEED buildings. there is also a requirement to source your building materials within 500 miles so iff there is no fsc certified mills within that radius you cannot use it.

If you want to save some money and get some local wood into these government buildings we should encourage the government to drop the LEED Gold requirment. It would save a fortune in capital costs.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 10:22 PM

http://www.ytong.co.nz

Ytong site from New Zealand

A site from Canada. As far as I know, Ytong is not distributed in Canada.

http://www.modernhomeidea.com/search/canada+ytong

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 10:34 PM

"there is also a requirement to source your building materials within 500 miles"

There is a WFP (FSC certified)sawmill in Whitecourt Alberta. It is 640 km by road. So, they could have met that requirement.

I think no one in their right mind would use sawn studs for commercial or institutional construction.

Posted by: gus on March 3 2011 10:49 PM

"Amazing how a little announcement by a Premier hugging Pat Bell, can morph into a huge construction project costings millions of dollars."

This germ of an idea has been sitting out there for what, three throne speeches by now? Hardly new.

Christy is hardly a dumb person. This project has to see some closure with either a go ahead or a wait and see, or a no. I doubt the study is quite complete of what the operations would look like at start up and projections through time. Once that is complete, decision time is here.

Aned we all know that election time is a good time to bring forward such decisions. So this would make it the second time this gets used at election time if they wait that long. If they are really serious about it, they will not wait that long because otherwise it won't get built.

Instead, if the NDP gets in, we will get programs which will educate specialized social workers to work in government rather than government profs educating engineers and designers of commercial products to sell on the world market.

Posted by: Palopu on March 3 2011 11:17 PM

Well I guess we should just continue to build these white elephant buildings, for Government workers to wander around in.

What the hell its just tax payers dollars.

Maybe we could fly in all the material we need on all those Wide Body Cargo Jets that fly in and out of the Airport.

As far as Im concerned when Governments get to the point that average citizens or citizens on limited income are going broke because of stupid Government spending and waste, and high taxes, then its time to stop the spending.

Seems people cannot get their head around the idea of just stopping the spending for five or ten years, and just go to work and look after the status quo. We dont need anymore hairbrained ideas in this town for at least 10 years.

There is more to life, than spending taxpayers dollars.

Every home owner in Prince George will pay at least $300.00 in additional taxes in the next five years for the winter games. The average homeowner never had a say into whether or not they wanted these games, and I defy anyone to explain how the average homeowner will benefit from them.

Hotels, Restaurants, and Night Clubs and Casino's will make some money. Retailers will lose money, and the average taxpayer will pick up the tab.

As usual they get the elevator, we get the shaft.

Posted by: univ on March 3 2011 11:31 PM

"In a dream world .... " even pigs can fly in PG with BC taxpayers money. I think we are getting our pigs lined up too.

Posted by: jakeadoo on March 4 2011 12:53 AM

All that bickering and no one can tell me what a Wood Innovation Centre is.I don't think any of you really know.I wonder if Pat Bell knows what a Wood Innovation Centre is?I can guess that it has something to do with how to use wood,but I can go out in my shop and try to figure that out.If no one really knows,then how bad do we need it and of what great benefit will it be?I'm not saying it's not a good idea,but WTF is it going to do for PG?

Posted by: jakeadoo on March 4 2011 1:15 AM

I Googled it and the info was not very helpful.

Posted by: Palopu on March 4 2011 10:22 AM

The Wood Innovation Centre will be a place where Engineers, and University Students can go and work on various ;programs with wood, to come up with different ideas. This could range anywhere from different types of building materials to extracting chemicals from trees and coming up with different types of products like turpentine, etc;

I suspect that 90% of what they will do has already been done somewhere else in the world, and probably is available on the internet.

In any event if it is funded by, and run, by the Government and University, then you know that it will be a direct expense to taxpayers, and will never be subjected to any kind of fiscal responsiblity.

Thats my take on it.

Have a nice day.