To be completed in early 2025, the University of British Columbia Gateway in Vancouver, Canada, serves as a symbolic and welcoming entry point to the UBC campus. The 24,800 m2 structure has six floors and promotes sustainability and wellbeing, inspired by the indigenous forest and Musqueam people of the surrounding area. Peikko delivered DELTABEAM® Composite Beams and PCs® Corbels for the project.
Located at the corner of Westbrook Mall and University Boulevard, UBC Gateway is a mass timber educational facility project consisting of classrooms, academic offices, teaching labs, and research laboratories. The developer is UBC Properties Trust, with Heatherbrea Builders managing the construction. The architects for the project were Perkins + Will of Vancouver, in collaboration with Schmidt Hammer Lassen. The structural engineering was carried out by RJC. Glulam was supplied by Vaagen Timbers, and the CREE panels were fabricated by Con-Force. Erection of the structure was carried out by KWH Constructors.
As well as being sensitive to the surrounding landscape, the project was carried out in line with the goals of LEED Gold and CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Design certification.
Integration of modular building systems
With a central six-story atrium connecting two five-story wings, a large interconnecting staircase, plus a highly integrated assembly of modular prefabricated systems, the project was particularly interesting for those involved.
According to Luc Gagnon, Project Engineer and Project Manager for DELTABEAM®, the project involved a complex assembly of solutions for the superstructure, with many high-level players and innovative solutions also involved. “Being part of this project was challenging, but ultimately very satisfying.”
Further challenges were presented by the requirement for a range of comfortable and welcoming spaces, natural daylight and connection to the landscape, along with the use of a heavy CREE slab system.
“This project was quite challenging due to the long spans required, with a 9 by 10.5 meter grid. The CREE system is a heavy slab system, with live loads being higher than a regular office. Coupled with the fire resistance and high vibration requirements, this made it quite a tricky puzzle to solve. Meeting these requirements with DELTABEAM® was very satisfying, as it provided a slim floor solution with integrated fire-rating and successfully connected three different structural systems (cast-in-place, glulam, and Cree panels) with ease of construction on site.”
The composite timber and concrete panels were assembled off-site and craned in, while the façade of the building is a fully prefabricated envelope made up of three-meter wide panels aligned with the structural timber. The use of mass timber was integral to the project’s goals due to its low embodied carbon, while locally sourced wood helps to establish the visual and physical link between the building, its occupants, and the natural environment.
Exceeding expectations
“From the outset, DELTABEAM® was specified as the basis of design by RJC Engineers in Vancouver. When the CREE System was introduced, a proposal to replace it with another steel-concrete composite beam was made. However, after conducting several pricing exercises, DELTABEAM® emerged as the most competitive option,” explains John Riley, Director of Sales & Business Development for Peikko Canada Inc.
It wasn’t just on pricing that DELTABEAM® proved to be the optimal choice, however. It also acted as a connector for other structural elements in a way that a regular mass timber beam or I-beam could not.
“None of the other proposed solutions could absorb the required tolerances brought on by the other components like DELTABEAM® could. The CREE panels are quite big and heavy, and thanks to DELTABEAM®, they were installed with almost an inch of tolerance, which is quite large. The same applies to the glulam columns. DELTABEAM® essentially became the default solution for any misalignment or deviation from the other structural components used for the superstructure”, says Gagnon.
DELTABEAM® not only brought various elements together, but also provided a slim floor and integrated fire resistance, meaning no extra fireproofing was needed on-site. It allowed for the adoption of a larger grid spacing, and its high rigidity met stringent vibration requirements.
“DELTABEAM® is often underestimated, but it can easily and efficiently absorb the tolerances and misalignment of the other systems. In the UBC Gateway project, DELTABEAM® made the systems match together seamlessly. This was a revelation for everyone involved, dispelling the misconception that DELTABEAM® is difficult to work with. On the contrary, it eliminated all the headaches that other systems couldn’t fix,” Gagnon adds.
DELTABEAM® gives an edge
Brent Olund, co-founder of Urban One Builders, specified DELTABEAM® on the UBC Gateway project, and was involved during construction of the entire structure. “111 DELTABEAM® units in total were delivered by Peikko in ten truckloads, and the consistent quality and dimensions of the product were essential in interfacing with the tolerances of the other structural elements used. The fabrication accuracy of DELTABEAM® made it a more structurally and architecturally reliable choice than the other solutions proposed, such as generic shop-fabricated steel ledger beams.
The typical connections along the DELTABEAM® are based on Gerber connections, which are intentionally located some distance away from the support columns, at the zero-moment locations (where there is no bending moment up or down, only pure shear). These connections are designed to make DELTABEAM® operate in compound bending instead of just simply supported bending, which leads to structural efficiency and reduction of the amount of steel needed within the DELTABEAM® to support the applied loads.”
The UBC Gateway building, located in a high seismic zone, included concrete cores. Here, DELTABEAM® provided the design team with two clear advantages, as Olund explains:
“The DELTABEAM® Floor Structure included Hidden Corbels for connection details, with anchorage reinforcing into the core concrete, provision for lateral adjustment of the beam end along the face of the core in the plan view, and provision for vertical adjustment of the beam end up and down the face of the core in the elevation view.
Secondly, a line of DELTABEAM® floors is able to act as a large drag strut for the collection of seismic shear forces from the slabs into the cores, preventing the need for other surface-mounted drag straps on the CREE slab panels.”
Engineering support a decisive factor
Luc Gagnon is a trained timber science engineer and has experience as both a consulting engineer and a project engineer for mass timber engineering firms. He has been working at Peikko for the past four years, and has been in the timber and construction industry for roughly 15 years. He studied wood science at Laval University, and is a certified project engineer with a specialization in wood-related projects.
“One of the decisive factors in favor of DELTABEAM® was the exceptional engineering support provided by Peikko Engineers, even before the project officially began. Luc Gagnon’s technical expertise, leadership, and in-depth knowledge in the mass timber industry played a crucial role in this phase. His contributions ensured that the project stayed on track and met all the technical requirements”, Riley says.
This is reiterated by Brent Olund: “The technical engineering implementation support provided by the team at Peikko Canada was essential in ensuring the success of the UBC Gateway project. It meant that problems regarding tolerances of the different systems plus other key structural design challenges were solved early, and this was essential to the timely and efficient completion of the structural coordination and construction.”
Main project info
Project name: University of British Columbia, Gateway
City and country: Vancouver, Canada
Project size (m2): 24,800
Floors: 6
Developer: UBC Properties Trust
Construction Company: Heatherbrae Builders
Structural Designer: RJC in Vancouver
Architect: Perkins + Will of Vancouver, partnered with Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Delivery year: 2023
Completion year: 2025
Solutions provided by Peikko: DELTABEAM® and PCs® Hidden Corbels
This article has been originally published in Connections 2025 customer magazine. You can find more Peikko's customer magazines here: Connections customer magazine