Simon Fraser University's newest student residence, currently under construction, is helping to answer one of the questions facing developers, owners, and institutions across Canada: can mass timber compete at scale in complex residential projects while meeting ambitious sustainability, schedule, and housing objectives? The nine-storey, 445-bed student residence in Burnaby, B.C., demonstrates that the answer is increasingly yes, particularly when mass timber is integrated into a collaborative delivery model and paired with strategic prefabrication.
The project consists of seven storeys of hybrid mass timber construction over a two-storey concrete base, using cross-laminated timber floor panels supported by steel columns and prefabricated steel braced cores. Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and BC Energy Step Code Level 4 performance, the residence will connect to SFU's biomass powered district energy system while providing much-needed student housing on a rapidly growing campus.
One of the most compelling aspects of the project is that it was not originally envisioned as a mass timber building. The design began as a conventionally constructed concrete residence before being converted to a mass timber solution late in the design process. That transition created unique challenges, but it also generated valuable insights for future projects and produced one of the most detailed comparisons of mass timber and concrete approaches assembled to date.
FEATURE
From Conversion to Confidence:
Lessons from SFU's Mass Timber Student Housing Project
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by Annabelle Hamilton
About the Author
Annabelle Hamilton leads the WoodWorks BC team, a provincial program that delivers technical support, education, and market development to advance wood construction in British Columbia. She has over ten years' experience managing multi-million-dollar projects from acquisition and municipal approvals through to construction completion, with a track record of delivering complex mixed-use developments on time and on budget. Her expertise in feasibility modelling for mass timber and light wood-frame construction supports rigorous viability testing, risk management, and evidence-based decisions. Annabelle holds an M.Sc. in Real Estate (Distinction) from Ulster University (RICS-accredited), a B.Sc. in Business Management from the University of Maine, and has worked in Germany and Northern Ireland. She is a trusted collaborator to decision makers advancing modern methods of construction across BC.
Most notably, the project demonstrates that even a late-stage conversion from concrete to mass timber can preserve architectural intent while improving building performance. The successful transition helped elevate the project from a Step Code 3 target to Step Code 4, delivering enhanced energy performance without sacrificing program requirements or usable floor area.
The project’s broader value lies not only in the building now taking shape, but also in the lessons it offers future project teams. As institutions across Canada look to expand student housing while meeting climate, performance, and schedule objectives, the SFU residence shows that mass timber can be a practical option for complex residential construction at scale. It also reinforces a central lesson: the greatest advantages are realized when the structural system, design process, procurement strategy, and construction sequence are aligned from the outset.
What Worked
The project's successes offer a valuable roadmap.
An experienced project team proved essential. Previous mass timber experience among the contractor and trades reduced the learning curve associated with encapsulation requirements, prefabrication sequencing, and CLT coordination. This expertise enabled the team to focus on optimization rather than education.
Innovation in the structural system also delivered measurable benefits. By replacing the originally planned concrete cores with prefabricated multi-storey steel brace frames, the team eliminated curing-related delays and enabled the mass timber structure to advance more rapidly. Competitive procurement strategies further improved efficiency, including adjustments to CLT panel sizing that reduced material quantities and installation complexity.
Why Mass Timber?
The decision to pursue mass timber emerged from a combination of sustainability, policy, and operational drivers. Provincial funding objectives supported greater use of wood and higher levels of energy performance, reflecting the priorities of B.C.'s Wood First policy and energy-efficiency requirements. At the same time, the university was seeking a construction approach that could advance its climate commitments and help meet its student housing targets. Mass timber offered a pathway to reduce embodied carbon, support high-performance building standards, and accelerate construction through prefabrication.
Equally important was schedule certainty. Universities operate on fixed academic calendars, and housing delivery timelines directly affect enrolment capacity and student experience. For SFU, schedule efficiency was as important as environmental performance, with prefabricated mass timber panels, steel cores, and façade systems helping to accelerate construction.
Lessons Learned
As with any pioneering project, some of the most valuable outcomes extend beyond the building itself.
Among the team's key observations was the growing maturity of mass timber construction practices. Moisture protection, once viewed as a significant uncertainty, has become increasingly predictable when managed by experienced teams. The project reinforced that moisture mitigation is evolving from a contingency concern into a manageable and well-understood project scope.
The team also identified the importance of planning for what they describe as a "fourth design phase." Highly prefabricated projects require extensive coordination after traditional design milestones are reached. Fabrication models, trade coordination, and manufacturing approvals all demand additional time before construction can proceed. Owners and project teams that fail to account for this stage may underestimate the effort required to fully realize the benefits of off-site manufacturing.
Another clear takeaway is that comprehensive BIM coordination is essential. In mass timber projects, connections, penetrations, and service routes must be resolved before fabrication begins. The high degree of precision required leaves little opportunity for field adjustments, making digital coordination a critical project success factor rather than a value-added service.
Perhaps the most significant lesson is also the simplest: design for mass timber from the outset. While SFU successfully converted a nearly complete concrete design into a mass timber building, the experience demonstrated that earlier integration would have unlocked additional opportunities to optimize structural systems, material efficiency, and costs.
Simon Fraser University's newest student residence, currently under construction, is helping to answer one of the questions facing developers, owners, and institutions across Canada: can mass timber compete at scale in complex residential projects while meeting ambitious sustainability, schedule, and housing objectives? The nine-storey, 445-bed student residence in Burnaby, B.C., demonstrates that the answer is increasingly yes, particularly when mass timber is integrated into a collaborative delivery model and paired with strategic prefabrication.
The project consists of seven storeys of hybrid mass timber construction over a two-storey concrete base, using cross-laminated timber floor panels supported by steel columns and prefabricated steel braced cores. Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and BC Energy Step Code Level 4 performance, the residence will connect to SFU's biomass powered district energy system while providing much-needed student housing on a rapidly growing campus.
One of the most compelling aspects of the project is that it was not originally envisioned as a mass timber building. The design began as a conventionally constructed concrete residence before being converted to a mass timber solution late in the design process. That transition created unique challenges, but it also generated valuable insights for future projects and produced one of the most detailed comparisons of mass timber and concrete approaches assembled to date.
FEATURE
From Conversion to Confidence:
Lessons from SFU's Mass Timber Student Housing Project
Project Team
Owner: Vision Truck Group
Architect: Martin Simmons Sweers Architects
Structural Engineer: Moses Structural Engineers Inc.
General Contractor: Zehr Group
Mass Timber: Timmerman Timberworks
Photos: Joe Martz | joemartz.com
About the Author
Annabelle Hamilton leads the WoodWorks BC team, a provincial program that delivers technical support, education, and market development to advance wood construction in British Columbia. She has over ten years' experience managing multi-million-dollar projects from acquisition and municipal approvals through to construction completion, with a track record of delivering complex mixed-use developments on time and on budget. Her expertise in feasibility modelling for mass timber and light wood-frame construction supports rigorous viability testing, risk management, and evidence-based decisions. Annabelle holds an M.Sc. in Real Estate (Distinction) from Ulster University (RICS-accredited), a B.Sc. in Business Management from the University of Maine, and has worked in Germany and Northern Ireland. She is a trusted collaborator to decision makers advancing modern methods of construction across BC.
What Worked
The project's successes offer a valuable roadmap.
An experienced project team proved essential. Previous mass timber experience among the contractor and trades reduced the learning curve associated with encapsulation requirements, prefabrication sequencing, and CLT coordination. This expertise enabled the team to focus on optimization rather than education.
Innovation in the structural system also delivered measurable benefits. By replacing the originally planned concrete cores with prefabricated multi-storey steel brace frames, the team eliminated curing-related delays and enabled the mass timber structure to advance more rapidly. Competitive procurement strategies further improved efficiency, including adjustments to CLT panel sizing that reduced material quantities and installation complexity.
Rather than expressing the roof framing through a conventional hierarchy of primary and secondary members, the design sought a more balanced and visually unified ceiling. Although the roof structure consists of primary girders and secondary beams, suspended perforated wood ceiling panels are positioned within the structural grid to conceal portions of the framing depth. The finished ceiling appears as a continuous timber waffle grid, creating the impression of a consistent beam depth throughout the space. The effect is remarkable: despite the substantial mass required to span such distances, the ceiling appears light and refined, floating above the showroom floor like a timber canopy.
Achieving this level of refinement required considerable attention to detailing. Custom steel hardware was developed for the project, including the connections supporting the long-span showroom structure. Column base connections within the showroom are recessed into the floor slab to conceal much of the supporting hardware, leaving only exposed steel plates visible. This strategy creates a cleaner architectural expression while maintaining the structural performance required of the system.
The dialogue between wood and steel is a recurring theme throughout the project. From structural connections to handrails and architectural details, timber provides warmth, texture, and visual richness while steel introduces precision and refinement. Together, the materials establish an architectural language that feels simultaneously sophisticated and industrial—a fitting response for a headquarters serving the transportation sector.
Measuring approximately 1,100 square meters (12,000 ft2) within a 33 m x 33 m footprint, the double-height showroom was required to accommodate large transport vehicles while maintaining an open, flexible floor plan. Multiple structural concepts were explored before the design team settled on a distinctive arrangement of angled glulam supports that has become one of the defining features of the building. The resulting V-shaped structural theme allows the roof structure to achieve clear spans of approximately 33 m x 13 m while preserving the circulation routes and display areas necessary for the trucks below.
The office structure also achieves significant spans. Central meeting spaces span approximately 11 metres without intermediate supports, creating flexible gathering areas while maintaining the clean expression of the exposed timber framing. Glulam bridges at the second-floor level connect different portions of the office, contributing both to circulation and to the visual experience of moving through the building. Even substantial rooftop mechanical equipment and the associated snow drift loads were accommodated within the glulam structural system, underscoring the capacity of mass timber to support demanding building services and loading conditions.
The project's most ambitious structural achievement, however, is the showroom.
While the architecture emphasizes openness and daylight, the structural system quietly performs a significant amount of work behind the scenes. Multi-storey CLT shear walls form the primary lateral force-resisting system, transferring wind and seismic loads through hold-down connections that extend continuously from the roof to the foundation. Additional steel bracing appears in only a handful of locations, making it one of the few non-timber structural elements in the building. Exposed CLT stairwells and an exposed CLT elevator core further demonstrate the versatility of engineered wood products beyond floor and roof applications.
The office portion of the building showcases timber's ability to create both structural efficiency and memorable occupant experiences. Bright corridors lined with full-height glazing also have large skylights overhead, while glulam columns frame a U-shaped atrium that extends through two storeys. Within this framework, wood slat wall panels reinforce the rhythm established by the structural grid, adding texture and visual warmth throughout the workplace. Daylight filters through the timber structure and across exposed wood surfaces, creating changing patterns of light and shadow like sunlight filtered through a forest canopy.
Why Mass Timber?
The decision to pursue mass timber emerged from a combination of sustainability, policy, and operational drivers. Provincial funding objectives supported greater use of wood and higher levels of energy performance, reflecting the priorities of B.C.'s Wood First policy and energy-efficiency requirements. At the same time, the university was seeking a construction approach that could advance its climate commitments and help meet its student housing targets. Mass timber offered a pathway to reduce embodied carbon, support high-performance building standards, and accelerate construction through prefabrication.
Equally important was schedule certainty. Universities operate on fixed academic calendars, and housing delivery timelines directly affect enrolment capacity and student experience. For SFU, schedule efficiency was as important as environmental performance, with prefabricated mass timber panels, steel cores, and façade systems helping to accelerate construction.
Lessons Learned
As with any pioneering project, some of the most valuable outcomes extend beyond the building itself.
Among the team's key observations was the growing maturity of mass timber construction practices. Moisture protection, once viewed as a significant uncertainty, has become increasingly predictable when managed by experienced teams. The project reinforced that moisture mitigation is evolving from a contingency concern into a manageable and well-understood project scope.
The team also identified the importance of planning for what they describe as a "fourth design phase." Highly prefabricated projects require extensive coordination after traditional design milestones are reached. Fabrication models, trade coordination, and manufacturing approvals all demand additional time before construction can proceed. Owners and project teams that fail to account for this stage may underestimate the effort required to fully realize the benefits of off-site manufacturing.
Another clear takeaway is that comprehensive BIM coordination is essential. In mass timber projects, connections, penetrations, and service routes must be resolved before fabrication begins. The high degree of precision required leaves little opportunity for field adjustments, making digital coordination a critical project success factor rather than a value-added service.
Perhaps the most significant lesson is also the simplest: design for mass timber from the outset. While SFU successfully converted a nearly complete concrete design into a mass timber building, the experience demonstrated that earlier integration would have unlocked additional opportunities to optimize structural systems, material efficiency, and costs.