Canada Earth Tower

Vancouver, BC, Canada · Design Complete

Project facts

Owner: Delta Land Development
Architect: Perkins&Will
General Contractor: Urban One Builders
Storeys: 37
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Status: Design Complete
Our involvement: Structural Engineer (Timber Superstructure)

Photography & imagery

Diagrams / renders: Perkins&Will

The world’s tallest hybrid mass timber tower

As conceptualized, the Canada Earth Tower will be the world's tallest hybrid mass timber building.

Currently designed to stand at 37 storeys tall, the building will primarily consist of housing (including non-market) with several lower levels of office and retail. The primary mass timber structure will use Dowel-Laminated Timber (DLT), Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), and Glulam.

As an early showpiece for this project, an outreach centre was built and opened to the public.

We are also currently designing a full-scale mock-up of the feature units and balconies - keep reading for more.

StructureCraft is excited to be providing the structural engineering and construction of the timber structure.

Architectural rendering of a planted terrace on Canada Earth Tower

Interior rendering beneath a branching roof at Canada Earth Tower

Residential interior rendering for Canada Earth Tower

Wood-lined meeting room at Canada Earth Tower

Boardroom lined with timber at Canada Earth Tower

Wood ceiling junction detail at Canada Earth Tower

Architectural rendering of the Canada Earth Tower podium

Street-level rendering of Canada Earth Tower

Balcony Testing

Our team engineered and built a mockup for the Canada Earth Tower, in order to explore creating practical prefab connection details for envelope and balcony systems in tall wood buildings.

The mock-up will also assist in researching durability of timber balconies and solutions to improve the acceptance of timber as a dominant structural system. A prefabricated CLT envelope system is attached with thermally isolated joints to the two-storey mock-up structure behind. The mass timber trapezoidal balcony decks use DLT+CLT in a steel frame supported by turned timber columns.

In addition, we tested two different waterproofing systems on the balcony and have monitored the moisture content in the timber panels over a period of 6 months.