Case Study: A High-Rise Mass Timber Building in Vancouver, British Columbia

The Keith Drive Office building, a 10-story, exposed tall wood structure located in Vancouver, Canada, will serve as landmark building in central Vancouver. The 43-m-tall structure is comprised of nine floors of mass timber gravity and lateral construction over a concrete podium and four levels of below-grade concrete parking. The 2-h fire rated exposed gravity structure consists of cross laminated timber (CLT) floor panels supported on dropped perimeter glulam beams and flush interior steel beams. The seismic force resisting system (SRFS) consists of perimeter timber braced frames and interior balloon framed CLT shearwalls. Tectonus resilient slip friction joint (RSFJ) devices specified at each brace, and both ends of each shear wall, allowing energy dissipation without damage to the structural system. To support the SFRS design, Non-linear time history analysis (NLTHA) was completed as part of a larger peer review. Iterative NLTHA was used to optimize the RSFJ design for the 2% in 50-year design earthquake. NLTHA was also implemented at 130% and 150% of the design UHS to review the collapse risk for an earthquake exceeding the design earthquake.