Special to Ontario Construction News
Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry Graydon Smith got a firsthand look at the progress underway at George Brown College’s mass-timber building Limberlost Place at George Brown’s Waterfront Campus in Toronto’s Distillery District with a construction-site tour on Dec. 11.
The visit was followed by a mass-timber roundtable discussion on the possibilities of wood construction held at the Daniels Waterfront – City of the Arts complex, another Waterfront Campus location.
About two dozen industry experts in architecture, construction, education, engineering, forestry, and land development took part in the discissions on how to unlock the potential of mass timber construction across the province.
George Brown College President Gervan Fearon and Luigi Ferrera, chair and CEO of the Brookfield Sustainability Institute and Dean of the Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology, were among officials hosting the event.
“As a post-secondary education institution, we support innovation and commercialization, which are very important to Ontario’s future prosperity and productivity on a global level. That also means we can help de-risk projects,” Fearon told the roundtable participants. “What we have done here with mass timber is we have helped to de-risk the project because we have done the testing and demonstrated innovation, and then open sourced it for industry so you can learn from our experiences, to take it away and improve on it.”
Participants discussed issues including financing challenges for prefabricated building construction, how mass timber can be used to address the housing shortage, and the growing need for mass timber education for industry and tradespeople.
Limberlost Place’s low- carbon facilities to open to students in just over a year will be the new home to the School of Computer Technology, the School of Architectural Studies and a new childcare centre serving the surrounding community. It will also house the Brookfield Sustainability Institute where George Brown will work with business, community and government partners on solutions to problems caused by climate change.
The BSI will help companies, municipalities and other institutions develop applied solutions to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
BSI will offer “up-skilling” opportunities to professionals and college and university graduates who want to work in sectors developing smart and sustainable solutions to climate change. BSI also collaborates with experts from various fields to develop best practices and projects aimed at contributing to tangible solutions that can be prototyped and tested with municipal and private sector partners.