55 Franklin

The four-building complex served as an opportunity for the team to explore innovative strategies to deliver affordable housing in the Region and test each design variation against their sustainability impact. As the first of four buildings in the series, 55 Franklin is designed with conventional light wood frame exterior and interior wall panels and CLT floor and roof slabs. Other sustainable features include photovoltaic solar panels, rainwater collection for greywater uses and a high-performance envelope.

The 240-unit project consists of four six-story residential buildings, each utilizing different structural approaches to evaluate speed, cost, sustainability, and constructability. The flagship mass timber building combines light wood-frame walls with concrete cores and CLT/NLT floor systems supplied by Element5. By using prefabricated mass timber floor panels, crews installed approximately 7,700 square feet of floor area in a single day and reduced construction schedules by as much as eight weeks per building. The project demonstrated how mass timber can accelerate housing delivery while reducing embodied carbon and maintaining affordability. Additional sustainability measures include high-performance building envelopes, triple-pane windows, solar energy systems, and rainwater recovery infrastructure.

Construction Speed Achievement:
Groundbreaking to occupancy in less than 11 months for the mass timber building prototype

Research Significance:
The project was designed as a side-by-side comparison of multiple housing construction methods to evaluate mass timber's ability to address housing affordability, labor shortages, and carbon reduction goals in Canada.

See the Mass Timber in Affordable Multi-Family Housing Paper by WoodWorks.