The Toronto Star writes about the debut of the first wood midrise residential building in Toronto.
Covid-19 forced many families to begin working from home who then realized their needs could not be met in typical Toronto condos. This was the case for Kamar & Jennifer Shah who were among the first tenants of the new V6 Leslieville six-storey mass timber residential building.
‘It was really important to us to minimize our footprint, while at the same time getting the additional square footage that we needed” said Kamar. “This property was completely unique, and that really appealed to us”.
This R-Hauz Solutions project features prefabricated panels which were lift and connected on-site to create a smaller multi-unit building suited to the city’s main streets and avenues. The structural panels are made from sustainable mass timber which has a lower carbon footprint than more common materials like concrete.
The 26,000 sq.ft. pilot project consists of two five-plexes. Construction took only nine months and subsequent projects are expected to take as little as six months and to cost much less than conventional building projects. One of the biggest hurdles was the approval for the wood elevator and stair shafts which are not permitted under the Ontario Building Code. Leith Moore, founder and principal of R-Hauz along with Toronto’s chief building official, Will Johnston overcame this using an alternate pathway in the building code.
