ETOBICOKE, ON

Humber College Lakeshore Campus Culture Hub

INSTITUTIONAL

This 375,000 ft² Culture Hub houses the School of Creative Arts and includes a four-storey mass timber student residence above a four-storey concrete podium.

The project includes glulam columns and beams, cross-laminated timber (CLT) floor and roof panels, and CLT shear walls.

The streamlined process involved transforming requirements into design outputs and managing the flow of information, supported by a detailed breakdown and responsibility chart linked to the IPD project last planner system.

By collaborating closely with the mass timber fabricator and installer, the design was optimized for material efficiency, speed, and ease of erection on site. Connections were designed to accommodate fasteners from multiple manufacturers to avoid delays associated with pandemic-related supply chain problems.

Through an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) process, Entuitive worked with contractors from the earliest stages of design. The complete structural design of the mass timber, including connections, remained in Entuitive’s scope as the structural engineer of record for the project.

Our team explored timber, steel, and concrete systems, as well as their associated costs and benefits. The client opted to use timber and adjusted their requirements to accommodate their sustainability objectives. Setbased design concepts were used to make the best decisions based on information gained through further design development. This was a “Choose by Advantage” process where the team focused mainly on the advantages of various design options, rather than a simple assessment.