Design firm Dialog has won Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Award in the architecture category for the Zero Carbon Hybrid timber Supertall Prototype project.

The project was selected as a winner by Fast Company’s editors and reporters, from more than 3,000 entries. The World Changing Ideas Awards honour businesses and organizations driving change in the world. Winners were chosen for work that embodied innovative thinking, standing as beacons of optimism and hope for what a better future looks like.

Dialog’s team of architects, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers, interior designers, and landscape architects came together to create this prototype, proving not only what’s possible — but necessary — as we design to fight climate change.

The project’s zero carbon footprint is achieved in part by combining mass timber with steel and concrete. The hybrid timber floor system (HTFS) is patent pending, paving the way for what Dialog hopes to become a commonplace design method.

“If you want to push the envelope, you can’t just do what the market is demanding of you,” says Craig Applegath, Dialog partner. “You have to step outside the market, take some risks, and the market may follow you.”

The prototype design is for a building that is 460 metres (1,509 feet) tall. The net building area inside is about 115,820 square metres, or just over 1.2 million square feet. At 105 storeys, the Hybrid Timber Tower would be the tallest building in Canada; it would also be one of the most sustainable.

The project is designed with a series of construction types and a concrete core that allow for a variety of uses from retail and office, to residential, and public amenities and beyond. An innovative combination of materials including wood, steel and concrete will maximize the use of sustainably harvested wood by volume. The result is a zero carbon high-rise that’s designed to address increased density while reducing greenhouse gases and generating its own energy.