SHL is an international architecture firm working at the leading edge of sustainability and technology. SHL is well known for its innovative mass timber projects such as Framehouse, UBC Gateway, Dordrecht House of the City (contemporary town-hall), Rocket & Tigerly (the world’s tallest timber tower in Switzerland) and Victory Silos in Toronto, which uses mass-timber as an adaptive transformation technology. These are testbeds of the latest technologies and practices to reduce the immense waste, carbon-load and environmental damage of new construction. Now, there is also an emerging political will to transform and adapt exciting buildings.
With political instability and environmental limits causing shocks in the commodity supply chain, the once reliable measures of construction cost are now changing daily. Suddenly, Adaptive Transformation and material conservation seem far more reasonable, and timber has a role to play. But we lack the education, techniques and financial instruments to handle this more sensible alternative with the same precision as with demolition and reconstruction. This talk explores what techniques, technologies and relationships are needed to allow Adaptive Transformation to compete with new-build, how the latest technologies might unlock the impasse and the opportunities opening up for mass timber solutions.
SHL is an international architecture firm working at the leading edge of sustainability and technology. SHL is well known for its innovative mass timber projects such as Framehouse, UBC Gateway, Dordrecht House of the City (contemporary town-hall), Rocket & Tigerly (the world’s tallest timber tower in Switzerland) and Victory Silos in Toronto, which uses mass-timber as an adaptive transformation technology. These are testbeds of the latest technologies and practices to reduce the immense waste, carbon-load and environmental damage of new construction. Now, there is also an emerging political will to transform and adapt exciting buildings.
With political instability and environmental limits causing shocks in the commodity supply chain, the once reliable measures of construction cost are now changing daily. Suddenly, Adaptive Transformation and material conservation seem far more reasonable, and timber has a role to play. But we lack the education, techniques and financial instruments to handle this more sensible alternative with the same precision as with demolition and reconstruction. This talk explores what techniques, technologies and relationships are needed to allow Adaptive Transformation to compete with new-build, how the latest technologies might unlock the impasse and the opportunities opening up for mass timber solutions.
