The University of British Columbia (UBC) was front and centre at the 15th annual Wood Design Awards in BC held earlier this month winning 2 prominent awards that included the Jury’s Choice award for a large-scale robotically fabricated temporary timber installation.
Cited by the jury as having distinguishing detail and textural features, the winning project pavilion, entitled the “Wander Wood” installation, was designed during a workshop hosted by UBC Forestry’s Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) and the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) in the fall of last year. Among the project team members was UBC project leads Jason Chiu and Jörn Dettmer of CAWP.
UBC also received the Institutional Wood Design Award: Large for its Campus Energy Centre which features renewable, locally-sourced cross-laminated timber panels supported by glulam columns and 20-metre clear-span beams. The facility also has a Douglas-fir glulam timber post-and-beam frame.
In addition to winning these awards of distinction, UBC was also invited to be a part of this year’s Wood Design Awards jury, represented by Angelique Pilon, Director of Urban Innovation Research at UBC’s Sustainability Initiative.
More than 100 projects in 14 different categories from locations throughout North America and overseas were a part of the nomination process, and more than 400 architects, structural engineers, developers, and other guests attended this year’s event.
The Wood Design Awards recognize excellence in contemporary design and building with wood and are presented by Wood WORKS! BC, the Canadian Wood Council and its member associations; with funding support from Natural Resources Canada and Forestry Innovation Investment.
