At 97 feet tall, the WIDC was the
world’s tallest all timber building
when completed in 2014.
(Photo: Michael Green Architecture)
21 . wood architecture
Wood Innovation and Design Centre
in Prince George, British Columbia
Last but not least, from Michael Green
— the man who literally wrote the book
(or the feasibility study) on tall wood
buildings — comes the Wood Innovation
and Design Centre (WIDC) in Prince
George, a bustling and historically
forestry-dependent burg in northern British
Columbia that’s official mascot is an only
slightly creepy anthropomorphic log-man
named Mr. PG.
A charred cedar-clad mothership for
timber-centric innovation in the western
provinces and beyond, “WIDC is about
celebrating wood as one of the most
beautiful and sustainable materials for
building here in BC and around the globe,”
writes Green’s eponymous architecture
firm of the $25 million CAD project
that’s inspired a score of other tall wood
buildings across the globe including,
most close to home, Brock Commons, a
record-breaking 18-story wood-hybrid
tower nearing completion on the campus
of the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver.