Resumen de Terminus, Vancouver Island: solving a mass timber challenge in a seismic region
Brendan Fitgerald, Ilana Danzig, Ross Jardine, Mehrdad Jahangiri
In early 2020, as the scale and severity of the Covid-19 pandemic was becoming clear around the world, Aspect Structural Engineers of Vancouver, Canada was coordinating the final details for an exciting and challenging new mass timber building. Aptly named Terminus, this was one of the last projects that Aspect would provide structural engineering services for in the pre-pandemic landscape.
Now complete, Terminus (Figure 1) is a five-storey commercial building featuring a novel steel buckling-restrained brace (BRB) lateral system framed within its mass timber superstructure. This marriage of two complex systems required the design, installation and fabrication of many challenging details. Despite these and other hurdles faced by the project, the design team proved well prepared to ensure a smooth delivery. Employing a combination of close collaboration, precise modelling and multiple rounds of thorough review, the team ensured Terminus was constructed by early 2021 on time and well within budget.
