Eighteen Storey Hybrid Mass Timber Student Residence

at the University of British Columbia

Paul Fast, P.Eng, Struct. Eng., P.E., FIStructE, Struct. Eng.; Bernhard Gafner, P.Eng, MIStructE, CEng, Dipl. Ing., FH/STV,
Struct. Eng.Fast+Epp Structural Engineers, Vancouver, Canada; Robert Jackson, EIT. No StructEng. Fast+Epp
Structural Engineers, Vancouver, Canada. Contact: rjackson@fastepp.com
DOI: 10.2749/101686617X14676303588553

Abstract Beams were eliminated from the (SSR), administered by the Building
design by utilizing CLTs two-way Safety and Standards Branch of the BC
This article outlines the structural spanning capabilities. A single-storey Provincial Government and is applica-
design approach used for the Brock concrete podium at the base, a steel ble solely to this project and site.
Commons Student Residence project, roof and two full-height concrete
One specic requirement of the SSR
an 18 storey wooden building at the cores for lateral stability complete the
was that the building be designed
University of British Columbia in structure. See Fig. 1 for a typical CLT
according to the not yet adopted 2015
Vancouver, Canada. When completed oor plate, and Fig. 2 for a column to
National Building Code of Canada
in summer 2017, it will be the tallest CLT assembly rendering. Building
(NBCC) rather than the prevailing
wooden building in the world at 53 m design began in January 2015, and
BCBC 2012. The main impact of this
high. The building features 17 storeys construction commenced in October
requirement was an increase in the
of cross-laminated timber on glulam 2015, just 10 months later.
applicable seismic acceleration values,
columns, unique column-to-column The key goals of the project were to cre- which are approximately 50% higher
steel connections and two concrete ate a safe, functional, sustainable and than those associated with the older
cores for lateral stability. cost-effective residence for UBC stu- code at a 2-s period2.
dents. Delivering a mass timber building
Keywords: prefabrication; tolerances; The SSR also outlines the re-rating
cross-laminated timber; mass timber; whose construction cost would align with
requirements of this unique building sys-
monitoring; rolling shear; damping. the unit cost of a comparable traditional
tem. Allowing the columns and CLT
concrete tower in Vancouver was an
panels to char in a re event is indeed a
important goal to demonstrate the via-
Introduction feasible and accepted engineering solu-
bility of wood as a practical material for
tion to achieve re ratings of more than
tall building applications.
Brock Commons is an 18 storey mass 2 h; however, type X drywall cladding
timber student residence currently was selected as the re protection strat-
Codes and Standards egy to streamline the approvals process.
under construction at the University
of British Columbia (UBC) in Van- The current British Columbia Building
couver, Canada. The 53 m tall struc- Code (BCBC 2012) limits the height Structural System
ture is comprised of 16 oors of ve of wooden buildings to six storeys1.
ply cross-laminated timber (CLT) Design Approach
Hence, a special approvals process was
oor panels, point supported by glu- required for this project. The design is In order to meet the cost objectives of
lam columns on a 2.85 m 4.0 m grid. based on a site-specic regulation the project, a disciplined structural

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
55620
435 3375 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 4000 435

L 12712713 angle c/w 2 rows of

All drag straps have 180 mm wide simpson sds 6.40 lg. @300.
No go penetration zone band final detail to be coordinated
Ds-3 typ. all panel joints about their centerline typ.
.

with envelope supplier.

.O

at perimeter (chord)
.N

all strap centerlines match typ. all around. 4m min. Single

U

275 1810 core wall centerlines. 1810 275

P.

piece length. CLT panle edge

TY
2
C

435

A
2415

CLT-1 CLT-2 CLT-3 CLT-4 CLT-5 CLT-6 CLT-7

B
CDS-1

DS-1

DS-1

2850

A 1 TYP.
CLT-8 CLT-9 S400 CLT-10 CLT-11 CLT-12 CLT-13
DS-1
3

3
C

C
3

3
3

TYP.
C

C
C

2 2
14250
2851

S700 S700
CLT-14 CLT-15 CLT-16 1 CLT-17 CLT-18 CLT-19 CLT-20
50

S400
50
3

3
3

3
C

3
C

D
275

275

275

DS-2
275

DS-2 DS-2 DS-2 DS-2

2850

CLT-21 CLT-22 CLT-23 CLT-24

TYP.
3
E
2415

S400
3
CLT-25 S700 CLT-26 CLT-27 CLT-28 CLT-29
DS-2 DS-2 DS-2 DS-2
F
435

Potential saw cut in top CLT panels CLT panle edge

lamination to relive 3 main span direction
stresses induced due to S500 east-west typical all Core 2
50 Core 1 50 differential axial panels see specifications 50 50
See S311 for reinforceing Conc. wall shortening typ. both sides See S312 for reinforceing
Conc. wall See architechtural for acceptable layups.
See S401 for wood connection details to CLT panel Conc. wall See architectural for Conc. wall to See S402 for wood connection details
to CLT for exact M+E to CLT panel exact M+E openings CLT panel
panel openings and sleeving and sleeving dimensions Note: Refer to architectural, mechanical
dimensions and electrical drawings for CLT service
250 THK. conc. slab penetration and sleeving locations. All holes
See S303 for slab to be completed at time of panel fabrication. Typ.
reinforcing details

F ig . 1: Typical CLT Floor Plate. (Units: mm)

44 Technical Report Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017

design approach had to be employed.
The intent was to keep the structure
simple and sensible: develop a prefab-
ricated kit-of-parts that could be
installed quickly and easily, with mini-
mal labour on site. Materials were
used only where they were needed.
Early on in the design phase, the con-
struction manager, timber installers/
suppliers and concrete trades joined
the team in a design-assist role. They
provided real-time feedback on the
evolving structural design, gave sched-
ule projections and valuable con-
structability advice.
To help achieve a high level of pre-
fabrication, a third-party consultant
modelled the building and helped
coordinate design documents prior to
and during construction. This three-
dimensional (3D) model, created with
CATIA software, includes completely
detailed structural elements and con-
nections, as well as mechanical/electri-
cal systems and architectural t-outs.
For example, the model allowed all
CLT penetrations for mechanical and
electrical sleeves to be fully coordi-
nated during the design process
and to be converted into fabrication
les computer aided manufacturing
(CAM) fabrication les needed for
computer numeric control (CNC)
machining.
Gravity System
CLT is often used as a one-way deck-
ing system, largely ignoring the two-
way spanning capability afforded by
its cross-laminations. By using CLT to
span in both directions, the design
team was able to eliminate beams, sig-
nicantly reducing the structural
depth, and thereby creating a clean,
Fi g. 2: Column to Column Rendering
Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017
at, point supported surface for serv-
ice distribution. Further, by adjusting
the column grid and architectural pro-
gram to suit the maximum available
panel size, the team was able to both
minimize the overall number of panels
(and therefore the number of crane
picks) and maximize structural
efciency.
Finite-element analysis of the CLT
panels was done with a commercial
software with an add-on module to
analyze laminated shell elements.
Approximations and hand calculations
using rst principles were used to vali-
date results from the software. Based
on an initial analysis, the moment and
deection demands exceeded the
capacities of standard ve-ply panels
available in western Canada. To
achieve the required performance, a
custom layup was designed using
machine stress-rated spruce lamina-
tions on the outer layers with an elas-
tic modulus of E = 10 300 MPa and a
specied bending stress capacity of
fb = 23.9 MPa. The inner layers are
based on typical No.1/No.2 spruce
lumber with E = 9500 MPa and
fb = 11.8 MPa3.
In addition to stiffness and bending
requirements, rolling shear stresses at
supports are typically a controlling fac-
tor in two-way, point-supported CLT
oor plates. A rolling shear failure is
one in which the bres roll over
each other due to shear forces perpen-
dicular to the grain. The only North
American code or material standard
reference that speaks to this issue is
the CLT fabrication standard ANSI/
APA/PRG 320, which species rolling
shear resistance values, fs, for CLT
panels at approximately one-third of
Fi g. 3: CLT Testing Apparatus
longitudinal shear resistance values,
fv4. However, recent research in Ger-
many by Mestek and Dietsch indicates
that rolling shear capacities are higher
in point-supported panels due to
added restraint from the high com-
pressive forces near the supports5.
To determine accurate values for
design, the team completed 18 full-
scale load tests6 on panels from three
prospective CLT suppliers. The testing
apparatus can be seen in Fig. 3, where
two-span continuous panels on six
point supports were loaded along their
centrelines, at quarter points. Based
on the test results and failure modes
observed, rolling shear capacities are
signicantly higher than the values
published in ANSI/APA/PRG 3204. In
addition, there appeared to be some
capability for the CLT to redistribute
forces as shear cracks propagated
through the panels. Multiple types of
failure behaviours were observed near
the supports, with the most common
being a cross-layer rolling shear as
shown in Fig. 4.
Lateral System
The primary lateral support for earth-
quake and wind loading consists of two
concrete cores. Although timber-based
lateral force resisting systems such as
CLT walls/cores, timber-braced frames,
or post-tensioned systems were feasible
design options for this project, the test-
ing, time and costs required to ascertain
regulatory approvals would have
delayed the project completion beyond
the target date.
The cores were designed as ductile
concrete shear walls in the shorter,
north/south direction and partially
coupled ductile concrete shear walls
Technical Report 45
 140

25 25
25 mm 140 mm Plywood spline

F ig . 4: CLT Rolling Shear Failure
in the longer, east/west direction. The
ductility and over-strength factors for
these two systems are Rd = 3.6 and
Ro = 1.6, and Rd = 3.5 and Ro = 1.7,
respectively1. This is roughly equiva-
lent to a combined seismic force
reduction factor of 5.75. Building fun-
damental periods are T = 2.0 s east
west and T = 1.65 s northsouth; the
design base shear correlates to 4.5%
of the building weight. Lateral design
was completed with a dynamic
response spectrum computer analysis.
In addition to the cores, the oor
diaphragms are a critical part of the
lateral system and must be designed
to remain elastic when the cores
yield2. This requirement results in
diaphragm design forces of up to
Vf = 16 kN/m in the CLT panels and
connections for this structure. The
CLT spline connection consists of
continuous Douglas r plywood
splines, nailed into CLT dadoes with
25
3
F i g. 5 : Typical CLT Spline Detail (Units: mm)
ring shank nails to transfer in-plane
diaphragm shear forces. Additional
partially threaded screws transfer ver-
tical shear across the joint and ensure
a ush panel-to-panel t (Fig. 5). To
drag diaphragm forces into the cores,
steel straps were fastened to the CLT
oor plates with partially threaded
screws and bolted to cast-in embed-
ded plates (Fig. 6).
In a seismic event, the glulam col-
umns and CLT oor plates will later-
ally displace along with the plastically
deforming concrete core. Therefore,
inter-storey drifts were kept
under 2.5%2.
Similar to the diaphragms, the raft
slab foundation was designed as a
capacity-protected element, in this
case to resist overturning moments
equal to the probable exural capacity
of the cores7. The probable capacity
of the cores is calculated by removing
material safety factors and increasing
the yield strength of the reinforcing
by 25%, resulting in a calculated
capacity of approximately two times
the design value.
Special Considerations
Column Shortening
In tall wood buildings, axial column
shortening needs to be considered
during design. When correctly
accounted for, the shortening should
not negatively affect the construction,
use or long-term performance of the
building.
Several factors affect glulam column
shortening:

CL
CLT panel CLT panel

Outline of angle under Steel drags strap

fastened to CLT.

Embed plate
50

Embed plate
Steel drags strap
Bolted connection fastened to CLT.

Steel drags strap

fastened to clt. CL
Concrete topping

Concrete wall

CLT panel

50

F ig . 6: Drag Strap Details. (Units: mm)

46 Technical Report Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017

 Dead-load elastic axial shortening
( = PL/AE)
Live-load elastic axial shortening
( = PL/AE)
Shrinkage parallel to grain
Joint settlement
Column length tolerances
Wood creep
The main concern surrounding these
shortening affects is the impact the
deformations can have on the vertical
mechanical services, and the elevation
tolerances between the wood super-
structure and the robust concrete cores.
The effects of these factors culminate
at the roof level, where all the columns
below contribute to the shortening. If
left unmitigated, the expected deec-
tion would total nearly 50 mm.
The strategy for mitigating these effects
is to add a series of 1.6 mm thick steel
shim plates at the column-to-column
connections at three strategic levels: L7,
L11 and L15. The total shim package
thickness varies with assumed stresses
to correct for differential shortening.
Owing to expected variations in elastic
modulus, and a degree of uncertainty
surrounding the anticipated shortening
values, only 50% of the calculated
deformations are being shimmed in
order to avoid overcorrection.
The connection can be seen in Figs. 7
and 8 where hollow structural
section (HSS) spigots with base plates
slide into one another to provide
steel-to-steel bearing. At strategic
levels, the shim plates are installed at
this bearing interface.
Dynamic Wind-Induced Vibrations
For buildings with a fundamental natu-
ral frequency of less than 1.0 Hz, the
NBCC 2015 requires a dynamic wind
Glulam column
CLT panel
169
Glulam column
Fi g. 7: Column to Column Detail
(Units: mm)
Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017
load analysis. As this structures rst
mode has a frequency of 0.5 Hz, its
vibration behaviour was studied with a
nite-element model using a 10 year
return period for wind loading. To
ensure occupant comfort, the building
was designed to limit wind-induced
accelerations at L18 to 1.5% of gravity.
As part of this analysis, a value for
damping needed to be assumed,
although limited research has been
completed on the topic of damping in
tall timber buildings. A recent FPInno-
vations paper reports in situ damping
ratios for three mid-rise mass timber
buildings with varying lateral force-
resisting systems8. The values, deter-
mined with ambient vibration testing,
range from 1.0 to 4.0%. The report
also suggests that damping increases
signicantly when non-structural com-
ponents such as nishes and partitions
are included. Other reports from vari-
ous sources conrm these damping
values. Based on this information, a
sensitivity analysis was performed with
various damping values between 1 and
3%. Accelerations at L18 fell within
the design limits with a damping value
of at least 1.5%. For a student resi-
dence building with multiple full-
height partitions on every oor, this
damping value seems reasonable.
Proof of Concept Mock-up
To help improve the constructability
of the proposed design, the construc-
tion team completed a full-scale
mock-up of a portion of the building,
Fi g. 8: Column to Column Mock-Up
8 m 12 m in plan and two storeys
tall (Fig. 9). The mock-up included
several connection types to help
determine which to use in the nal
design and how to optimize them. In
addition to the structural lessons
learned, the mock-up was also used
for the development and evaluation of
various building envelope systems
considered for the project.
Three different column-to-column
connections were used in the mock-
up. The steel HSS column-to-column
connection described above was
selected over two different wood-to-
wood connections, as it proved the
easiest to erect and shim while also
providing the tightest tolerances and
smallest required column size, thus
reducing the overall volume of glu-
lam. The most notable improvement
from the mock-up prototype to the
nal version was the revision from
welding the threaded rods and HSS to
the steel plate to drilling and tapping
them with a CNC machine. The weld-
ing of the rods and HSS caused warp-
ing and cupping of the steel plate,
which adversely affected the bearing
connection. By switching to a CNC-
machined detail, the overall length
tolerances could be reduced to
 0.5 mm, better matching the dimen-
sional tolerances of the CNC-
machined timber elements.
Construction Tolerances
and Sequencing
A carefully detailed structural system
that accounts for construction toler-
ances can greatly reduce the risk of on-
site issues that cause delays and undue
costs to the owner. All material inter-
faces were identied and evaluated in
regards to their material standard toler-
ance compatibility. Where required,
the details were adjusted to overcome
the discrepancies, whereas in other
cases the specications required a
project-specic adjustment. Addition-
ally, quality control (QC) requirements
have been outlined in the specications
which include QC logs for dimensional
tolerances of all CLT panels, verica-
tion logs for CLT truck load manifests
and element installation logs.
In order to facilitate the use of one
crane and provide sufcient time for
manufacturing and shipping of the
heavy timber elements, the construc-
tion team has erected all 18 stories of
the concrete cores prior to the wood
arriving on site. Each storey will have
Technical Report 47

F ig . 9: Mock Up Construction
F ig . 10 : July 2016 Timber Installation.
(Credit: KK Law)
22 large prefabricated envelope
panels which will be installed in paral-
lel with the timber. This sequence will
provide weather protection at each
oor and allow building t-outs to
begin immediately. Erection time of
the timber and envelope elements
reached two oors per week in the
summer of 2016. A July 2016 con-
struction photo can be seen in Fig. 10.
The building superstructure, roof, and
envelope panels are currently com-
plete and t-outs have begun.
Monitoring
In an effort to better understand the
unique behaviour of this building, the
48 Technical Report
structure will be t with acceler-
ometers, moisture meters and string
potentiometers. The accelerometers
will allow better determination of in
situ damping values from ambient
vibrations, and the moisture meters
and string pots will help verify
assumptions surrounding column
shortening and shrinkage. Moisture
meters and data loggers will be
installed at the CLT and glulam fabri-
cation plants; these meters will moni-
tor the rise and fall of moisture
content in mass timber elements as
they move from fabrication to erec-
tion and through the rst few seasons
in service.
Conclusion
This paper outlines some of the
unique engineering challenges associ-
ated with a tall mass timber building
and the design strategies used to over-
come them. The project has proven to
be cost-competitive compared with
the concrete towers in the local mar-
ketplace, which was largely achieved
by an integrated design team, real-
time input from trades and structural
discipline.
References
[1] The Province of British Columbia. British
Columbia Building Code 2012. The Province of
British Columbia: Victoria, 2012.
[2] National Research Council of Canada.
National Building Code of Canada 2015. National
Research Council of Canada: Ottawa, 2015.
Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017
[3] Canadian Standards Association. CSA O86-
14: Engineering Design in Wood. Canadian
Standards Association: Mississauga, 2016.
[4] American National Standards Institution.
ANSI/APA PRG-320: Standard for Performance
Rated Cross Laminated Timber. American
National Standards Institution: Tacoma, 2012.
[5] Mestek P, Dietsch P. Design Concept for
CLT Reinforced With Self Tapping Screws.
Munich: German Society of Wood Research,
2012.
[6] FPInnovations. Testing of Point-supported
CLT Floors for Brock Commons: Summary.
FPInnovations: Vancouver, 2015.
[7] Canadian Standards Association. CSA
A23.3-14: Design of Concrete Structures. Cana-
dian Standards Association: Mississauga, 2014.
[8] FPInnovations. Serciveability of Next Gener-
ation Wood Buildings: Case Study of Three
Innovative Mid-Rise Wood Buildings. FPInno-
vations: Vancouver, 2012.
SEI Data Block
Owner/client:
UBC Student and Hospitality
Services & UBC Properties Trust
Design architect:
Acton Ostry Architects
Consulting architect:
Hermann Kaufmann Architekten
Structural engineer:
Fast+Epp
Construction manager:
Urban One Builders
3D coordination consultant:
CadMakers Virtual Construction
Timber manufacturer:
Structurlam Products
Timber installer:
Seagate Structures
Concrete/reinforcing trades:
Whitewater/LMS/Lafarge
Wood (m3) 2120
Concrete (m3) 2740
Total cost (CAD million) 51.5
Projected completion date Summer 2017