CertiWood Technical Centre

In 1962, the Plywood Technical Centre (North Vancouver, B.C.) was opened, and has been carefully nurtured and shaped over the years to achieve its present status of being an internationally recognized centre whose activities embrace:

• Product and Appication Developments
• Development of Engineering and Enhanced Performance Data
• Product Certification and Quality Services
• Market Access issues related to Building Codes and Product Standards

CertiWood (then the Plywood Manufacturers Association of BC - PMBC) was responsible for establishing the first Canadian Product Standard for Plywood in 1953 which was the vehicle for having plywood accepted in Canada's National Building Code. Through ongoing plywood research and development in subsequent years, the Technical Centre quickly earned an international reputation as one of the world's most respected and influencial sources of research and design data on plywood and its many structural applications.

 

History of the CertiWood Technical Centre

Still as strikingly innovative as it was in 1962 - the CertiWood Technical Centre remains as pleasing to the eye over 40 years later! - its dramatic roof line faceted with 86 triangular and trapezoidal panels of plywood.

It is less isolated now, the surroundings less treed. A row of recent townhouses stands shoulder to shoulder across the street like curious neighbours watching the comings and goings of a research facility that has had as much international influence on building design and construction as any other centre of its kind in Canada or, indeed, in the world. This is the Technical Centre of CertiWood. Officially opened in North Vancouver in September 1962, it expanded with the addition of an annex in 1970, and now having served for over 40 years as one of the world's most respected and influential sources of research and design data on plywood and its many structural applications. Its work is patient and painstaking, unheralded by press releases or news clips, and only narrowly recognized even in the Canadian forest industry it serves so well.

After 45 years, it merits this modest fanfare. When it opened in September 1962, the CertiWood Plywood Technical Centre (then called The Plywood Research Laboratories) incorporated a decade of experience in setting standards for the design and testing of plywood structures.

It was decided early in the design process that this facility would have dual function: the structure would house an advanced research centre capable of testing fullscale plywood structures with spans up to 100 feet, but the building itself would also be a showcase for some of the building techniques and systems that would be studied and further developed there.

Working with a distinguished team of consultants, the architectural firm of Thompson, Berwick and Pratt created an 8,100 square foot structure enclosing 7,200 square feet of column-free working space, the whole building being spanned by a series of two-hinge glulam arch ribs resting on concrete buttresses. The roof system, designed to add structural stiffness to these light arch ribs, consists of a combination of 86 structural panels, ranging in area from 70 to 186 square feet, in a variety of triangular and trapezoidal forms. A mezzanine floor of offices also utilizes the structural strength of plywood components with its floor of plywood stressed skin panels supported by a 60 foot plywood webbed beam.