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Patented hybrid timber floor system blends with concrete and steel for supertall buildings.
The project to explore the feasibility of an innovative hybrid timber floor system is being funded via the Canadian Government’s Green Construction through Wood (GCWood) Program and the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT). (main pic: EllisDon & Dialog’s 460 metre mass timber prototype.)
They’ve contributed over CAD$550,000 to the Hybrid Timber Floor System (HTFS) Project led by EllisDon (a construction and building services company based in Ontario, Canada) and DIALOG (a building design practice).
Their goal is for mass timber structures to enter the supertall division of high-rise construction.
How tall? One hundred and five storeys, or 460 metres high, says Craig Applegath, founding principal at DIALOG.
Applegarth led a dozen designers from his firm and a team of collaborators from EllisDon, RWDI and Pond Tech to create a zero-carbon hybrid timber tower prototype.
“The most important thing is not its height, the most important thing is to demonstrate clearly that you can use mass timber in a very tall building and just as importantly that you can have a zero-carbon tall building,” Applegath explained.
At this stage the supertall mass timber building remains a prototype, and it, or other iterations of the concept are subject to the study outcomes.
Their patent-pending Hybrid Timber Floor System is an innovative approach to the existing concept of hybridizing structural materials. The Hybrid Timber Floor System, a mixture of different materials such as concrete and steel combined with mass timber, offers a reduction in carbon and an increase in building design possibilities.
As a composite of post-tensioned concrete, CLT and a structurally ‘engaged topping’, it also allows mass timber–based floor systems to be used in non-residential long-span construction that had previously been limited to traditional building materials.
According to EllisDon and DIALOG’s study, this Hybrid Timber Floor System means mass timber can be used to meet the clear spans often desired in the commercial and institutional sectors while delivering exposed finishes. This ability means greener construction options, meaningful use of local natural resources and benefits to the bioeconomy.
The study is currently underway at EllisDon’s modular fabrication facility, located in Stoney Creek, Ontario; the facility is an industrial building of over 27,000 square meters that is fully fit for prefabricated volumetric modules and panelised building components.
The project will be completed later this year, with ongoing full-scale and long-term testing planned post-study.
“Replacing steel and concrete with wood — which has significantly less embodied carbon — means that tall buildings could be designed to be lower in embodied carbon. The Hybrid Timber Floor System (HTFS) provides greater spans that are ideal for open floorplates or mixed use. HTFS is a gamechanger over traditional hybrid wood construction. It allows for the possibility of using CLT in buildings of any type, height and size at a competitive cost,” said Craig Applegath.
