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After 10 years of brainstorming, problem-solving and eureka moments, Vancouver’s The Hive office building, the tallest mass timber seismic-resistant building in North America, has reached structural completion with only the interior fit-out remaining.

Designed by Dialog, the 10-storey building, with its distinctive honeycomb-shaped exoskeleton, is destined to become an instant Vancouver landmark – the most prominent new building travellers see when heading into downtown Vancouver on Keith Drive or via SkyTrain through the city’s False Creek Flats. 

has leased the entire 164,000-square-foot building as its new headquarters with possible occupancy set for June 2027.

The project development manager was BentallGreenOak and Ventana Construction was the GC.

Dialog partner Martin Nielsen said in an interview he could not identify the proponent of the project, but it’s well known and confirmed the owner was Nature’s Path, a prominent British Columbia organic farming enterprise, which originally was going to take two floors for itself.

Triple bottom line

“What I love about this project is its triple bottom line,” said Nielsen. “It’s dealing with environmental, obviously, by using wood, sequestering carbon, all of those good things, avoiding the carbon associated with concrete, but it also supports the B.C. economy, with B.C.-grown wood.

“And then, it’s a beautiful workspace.”

The Hive is built with 106 Tectonus seismic damper connections as part of a perimeter braced structural system that allows the building to self-centre after an earthquake.

The technology was originally developed in New Zealand in the wake of earthquakes there.

Extensive testing was carried out at the University of Alberta including the use of large mockups. Glulam diagonal braces at the perimeter, paired with interior cross-laminated timber shear walls, contribute to the seismic resistance.

The designers received a total of $4 million in research funding from the federal and provincial governments. The assistance went towards mass timber destructive testing, constructability analysis, fire testing and more.

“You had to actually do research that was going to drive the industry forward,” explained Nielsen.

The funding also supported reports to convince building inspectors the mass timber seismic scheme was effective, he added, and it also addressed insurance concerns.

“In a seismic event, these joints actually move,” said Nielsen. “They allow the whole building to move with the seismic event, to almost sway like a piece of grass in the wind.

“This building will actually take on those forces, dissipate them and return it to vertical. That’s a powerful idea.”

Nielsen, with credentials as both an architect and mechanical engineer, described the collaborative process that led to the perimeter braced frame solution and the honeycomb design.

He said the design team was pondering what a building for an organic farmer should look like. 

The designers spent eight months in schematic design wrestling with the issues.

The breakthrough came at a design meeting with Paul Fast and Robert Jackson from Fast+Epp where they suggested that moving the shear resisting members to the perimeter would declutter the core and create a more efficient and flexible floorplan within the long narrow footprint.

Fast began drawing diagonal braces that zigzagged vertically from the roof to the ground floor on a drawing of the south elevation.

Minutes later Ryan McClanahan, an intern architect on the Dialog team, suggested flipping the orientation of one of the braces, creating a honeycomb pattern. The design would enable balconies, outdoor gardens and protection from the elements.

“Oh my god, that’s our organic farmer,” said Nielsen.

“It really was a eureka kind of moment.”

Mass timber was considered early on, but it was only when UBC built an 18-storey mass timber student residence that Nature’s Path fully bought in.

The timber was sourced from a B.C. firm, Kalesnikoff. The Hive’s greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption levels have been calculated to be 80 per cent below the median for the building type, Dialog says.

Other sustainability features include triple-glazed windows, which help block noise from the roadway, and a water system that has achieved salmon safe certification.

Power is through electrification and the project is essentially zero carbon, Nielsen said. The design has been certified LEED Gold.

Commented Nielsen, “What I love about The Hive is that there’s going to be a whole other generation of developers who are going to look at The Hive and say, ‘Hey, can we do this,’ as an inspiration for office buildings.”