TORONTO -- Ontario's first mass timber academic building is under construction at the Centennial College's Progress Campus.

The Toronto-based university is collaborating with EllisDon, DIALOG, and Smoke Architecture to construct the province's first zero-carbon, mass timber higher-education building, designed based on the Indigenous concept of "Two-eyed Seeing."

The $105-million expansion to the A-Block campus building will embody the college's commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous education, and sustainable design when it opens in 2023.

Mass timber, which is composed of a mix of wood strips laminated together to form strong structural components, can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector, cut wastage, pollution, and costs associated with construction, and create a more aesthetically pleasing and healthy built environment. The components are predominantly Glulam columns and beams made of wood strips laminated lengthwise, and floor slabs of cross-laminated timber (CLT).

The six-story addition will provide 150,000-square-feet of academic programming space for School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science programs, flexible classrooms that support Indigenous ways of teaching and being, as well as support areas such as an engaging student touchdown area, along with collaborative spaces, administrative offices, and food services.

"The indigenous concept of 'Two-eyed Seeing' empowered our team to explore the ideas of zero-carbon and mass timber through an Indigenous lens, as well as a Western lens," said Craig Applegath, Principal-in-Charge at DIALOG. "The two perspectives amplified each other; for example, the aluminum cladding was detailed with contemporary parametric software to replicate the way a fish's scales move over its body, shifting independently yet forming a single skin. It's incredibly functional yet also quite magical."