Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 6th, 2017

[Michael Green]

I have a great way to describe this.

I built the first tall wood building in Canada. It's up in Prince George. It was the Wood Innovation and Design Centre. It's a 100% wood building that's eight storeys tall. We calculated that the North American forest grows enough wood to build that very large building every four minutes, again shifting the public's perception of what the forests can produce for timber.

That's North America, not just Canada, but the point is that we have the resources to do it and the skills to do it, but we don't have the investment to do it. Moving us away from primitive approaches into advanced value-added wood products is the key.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

I want to ask about investment, but I think the chair is going to cut me off.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You're unfortunately out of time.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay, next time.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Go ahead, Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Well, thank you.

Thanks for being here today. It's been extraordinarily interesting.

A lot of what we've been hearing from you today is about the reluctance of the Canadian market to move to this new technology.

Could you comment on the idea of having government procurement policy drive that shift to changing public perception, and also building these companies from mom-and-pop operations to the bigger operations that you talked about?

Would that be a helpful thing?

[Michael Green]

Absolutely.

We have the Wood First policy in British Columbia. It's almost voluntary, community by community, but it's made a big difference simply because it introduces the concept into the conversation. That's all it takes, that first introduction.

I think government procurement policy is smart. The French government has done just that. Their intent is to move from 5% wood buildings in the residential market to 30% over the next 30 years, as a matter of public policy around climate change. I think we can do the same thing. We should make this not only about supporting our forest industry but part of a sustainable building policy for government buildings. I think it's a great idea.

I think some parts of our country have moved towards that. Ontario and B.C. have both started to invest in it, but at a federal level it would be a wonderful help.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

You talked about the need for big investment. Is there any reason you can think of that the big operators, such as Canfor and Interfor and Resolute, haven't jumped in? Is it just too new and it's not what they do?

[Michael Green]

The way I look at it is that the construction industry is broken, but it's not quite broken enough that anybody wants to actually fix it. Everybody is making money, so it's hard to say, “Let's start over in the way we think about it.”

However, we're going to have to, now that things are changing so quickly. I don't see a reason that those companies can't do it. They certainly can build CLT plants. I've spoken with all of them before. Certainly they could jump into this area. It's not a large investment; it's $15 million that makes you a CLT plant. Again, we have just two of them in the entire country.

When I talked to the Katerra group, which is again Silicon Valley guys—their CEO used to run Tesla, by the way, and these are very significant thinkers—their attitude towards a $15 million investment was laughable, because it's such a small investment. In the forest product sector, that's a huge investment.

Fixing that does need the big companies to invest in it. They don't is because their cultures aren't really built around innovation. They cut trees, but they're not in the innovation business. I think they need to be. I think it's part of their future to understand the importance of it, but I'm personally not entirely clear on how we incentivize them to do it.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Are there model codes from elsewhere in the world, especially from the States, that might help?

[Michael Green]

We are the leader.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Okay.

You talked about fire chiefs. Can you quickly talk about Brock Commons at UBC and what the local fire chiefs thought of that project?

[Michael Green]

I've only heard good feedback about the project. Once people see the building, walk around the building, and understand the building....

The problem with that building as a benchmark is that they covered up all the wood. I believe that was a huge mistake. The only incentive, from a marketplace point of view, to build buildings like this is to expose the wood. All the buildings I do globally are exposed wood. Unfortunately, Brock Commons covered it, so it's not a useful example to communicate to fire marshals from a fire point of view because it's overly conservative. It doesn't actually deal with the science.

Again, it's designed to the emotion of how people would react to a tall wood building. That will change. The next few that get built will start to shift that perspective. Certainly fire marshals who have experienced it understand it and are comfortable with it.

As far as international code goes, no country anticipated this. Even though a lot of the industry on the forest products side.... Some of the most exceptional industries are in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and even Italy, but their codes didn't anticipate it either. If anything, we are a global leader in code advancement. The fact that we're going to get to 12 storeys by 2020 is actually.... As much as I'm critical of it, in one way I'm very proud that we are stepping up to the plate and moving the bar higher like that. We just need to take the number 12 off and allow ourselves to build tall, period. That's really where we'll end up.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'm wondering if you could give us some of the details about the fire safety question, because that's what I hear about. As you may know, I have a private member's bill on this very subject, and I'm encountering resistance from people. Could you talk about the fire safety concerns of exposed wood and how you get through that?

[Michael Green]

There are two methods of protecting a building. When it's tall, we need to separate a building horizontally and vertically with what's called a two-hour fire separation. There are two ways we can do that with wood.

One is we take our wood and cover it up with two layers of fire-rated gypsum products, meaning drywall. That's what we did in Brock Commons. That's really heavy and it hides the wood, but it creates a traditional fire barrier to protect the wood.

The other method, which is really based on the way we've done things for 100 years—it's not new—is that we overbuild the size of the wood by a certain dimension. If it needs to be this wide structurally, we build it this much wider. That extra width is basically what would be allowed to burn in a big fire. It burns away very slowly—it actually burns at 0.6 millimetres per minute—so we can calculate exactly how much burn there will be. Over two hours, we lose a certain amount of material, but the remaining material still has the structural soundness to support the weight of the building plus the weights of the occupants and the firefighters who need to fight the fire. That's the principle involved.

The reality is that in all of the fire testing we're seeing for CLT products, it's very difficult to sustain a fire. Again, this is a public perception issue. The analogy I give is that it's like taking a big log and a lighter and trying to make a fire. You can't do it. You need little sticks, and you need to build up your kindling before you can put the big log on. These products are so robust that they do not catch fire very easily because they have this massive thickness.

As I said, we've designed wood buildings like this, and our codes have accepted wood buildings like this for the last century, since the beginning of building codes. We build heavy timber buildings with these big wood beams that are allowed to char naturally in a fire, but that protect the core structure. We've been doing it, but we just haven't shifted from thinking about it at certain heights to allow it to go to bigger heights. That's really the obstacle, and it's really, again, just an emotional shift that has to happen to embrace the science we already know. I think we're getting there, but it's going a little bit too slowly to really advance it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Serré is next.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will let Mr. Tan ask a first question.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you.

We just had some talk about this 53-metre-high Brock Commons building in Vancouver, which was erected in only 66 days. I realize that the building was designed by other architects. I'm wondering if you or your company believes that there are also other big opportunities for other kinds of structures to use this wood and to use mass timber panels, in addition to focusing on the tall buildings?

[Michael Green]

That's a great question.

Unfortunately I did not win the project to build Brock Commons, but we are building taller buildings elsewhere in the world right now. In Canada, I believe there are an infinite number of opportunities to build more in mass timber.

At low heights, we've done many mass timber buildings in Canada that are what I call “legacy buildings”. These are institutional investments in a building when you expect that investment to last 60 to 100 years. Where you might choose to build in concrete or concrete block and light wood frame construction may not be robust enough for that kind of longevity, such as in an earthquake zone, where I live, is where you might choose to use these products on lower buildings. This would be for a university campus and certainly for government buildings. I built North Vancouver City Hall this way. I built part of the Ottawa airport. The Ottawa airport, by the way, is one of my designs. It's only part wood, but it is part wood. Certainly lower heights are possible.

The other important thing is that we talk about tall wood buildings, and not because I believe we should have a world of 24-storey or 30-storey tall wood buildings. I believe you design a few at that height, and the public gets comfortable with that idea. Then when we build a lot of buildings at 12 storeys and 14 storeys, where most people live—10 to 12 storeys, 14 storeys in the cities—the public then becomes very comfortable, because they can point to much taller buildings. The big super-tall building is really about stretching imagination, pushing engineering innovation, and changing the public's perception of what is possible. The vast majority of advanced wood buildings will be 14 storeys and less, I would guess.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I have another quick one.

You mentioned tall buildings made of wood of up to 30 storeys or 40 storeys, and you also mentioned that the code in China has been changed to allow building wood structures of up to 18 storeys. You also mentioned that the industry in Canada is not ready.

If you and other architects are ready, technically, to build those kinds of high buildings, should we do it?

[Michael Green]

Yes, we are, and we're doing it.

We've been asked by the U.S. company to partner with them in China. That is not in my current mandate, so I'm probably not going to do that, but I think there are lots of opportunities for others to do so.

This education piece is paramount to making this happen. I've been talking about this kind of education for a very long time—I've built exclusively in wood—but that's not good enough. I can build one building at a time, or I can create this school to advance the cause globally. That's where my personal commitment is, not to specifically build lots of buildings in China or in other countries.

That school that I keep speaking to, to be frank, is a not-for-profit B.C. organization and society. My intention is to have it free, globally available online, and paid for by international governments. Lots of governments internationally have spoken to me about their interest in investment, but ours has not. I think that's something that I would appreciate a conversation about at some point.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You have about two and a half minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Could you clarify the role of the federal government? Earlier, you mentioned that developing and enforcing building codes is the responsibility of the provinces 100%. Is that what you said?

[Michael Green]

Yes, but it's based on the national code. The provinces take the national code and adjust it for their own context. The code changes first at the national level, and then it trickles to the provinces. In some cases, even the city can have its own. For example, Vancouver has its own independent building code.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

I also want to follow up on the investment question that my colleague started to ask.

You mentioned R and D. You mentioned innovation. What can we do, as a federal government, to stimulate and attract private sector investment in the industry?