The Centennial College Block A Expansion Project, looking to be one of the first mass timber, net-zero carbon post secondary education facilities, has recently been certified Zero Carbon under the Canada Green Building Council’s Zero Carbon Building Standard v1.

The addition will provide 150,000 square feet of space for academic rooms and common areas to house the College’s School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science programmes (ICET). The adjacent structure will also be renovated and link to two levels of the new building.

EllisDon is the design-builder of this contemporary six-storey building along with Dialog Architects and Smoke Architecture. The building draws heavily from Indigenous principles and references nature and designs from Indigenous peoples, also called the “First Nations”, which is instrumental to the project. The low carbon, highly energy efficient, mass timber building will be constructed with a combination of cross and glue-laminated locally-sourced Canadian timber. The project truly raises the bar and aims to be an example for future post-secondary projects.

EllisDon’s internal Sustainable Building Solutions team is managing the sustainability targets, which include certification under WELL V2 and LEED V4. RDH Building Sciences Inc. was brought in to help manage the Net Zero Carbon features and has been instrumental in the project achieving Zero Carbon certification.

The LEED and Net Zero Carbon features of the expansion focus on high-performance building enclosure to reduce heating and cooling loads on the building, efficient mechanical system design in order to provide exceptional occupant comfort as well as renewable energy integration (i.e. five per cent onsite renewable energy generation) to supplement building energy use with clean power.