Cambrian Heights
A 46,500 ft² multi-tenant industrial building in mass timber, placed on a difficult site using DAO's own cost and site models.
Cambrian Heights was rezoned in line with the City of Greater Sudbury's Official Plan and is one of the first mass timber industrial buildings in the area. It was designed in steel and switched to glulam when the steel market changed, giving the owner a durable, low-carbon structure that tenants see every day.
Units can be combined or divided without disturbing the offices and services along the street front.
The site is large and uneven bedrock. We built a parametric model that separated rock blasting, fill removal and fill addition, and priced the foundations and retaining walls with them. Moving, raising and resizing the building in the model showed the most cost-effective placement before the design was fixed.
The Canadian Wood Council features our industrial mass timber work in Exploring the Role of Mass Timber in Industrial Buildings and Warehouse Construction.
- Status
- Completed
- Period
- 2019–2025
- Location
- Sudbury, Ontario
- Sector
- Industrial
- Structure
- Mass timber (glulam)
- Scale
- 2 storeys
- Floor area
- 46,500 ft²
- Client
- Bloomington Developments
- DAO services
- Algorithmic design
- Rezoning
- Site plan approval
- Landscape design
- Conceptual design
- Rendering package
- Building permit
- Enhanced construction administration
Project team and credits
- Mass timberNordic
- StructuralTall Pines Engineering
- Site structuralKirchhefer + Englobe
- Mechanical and electricalSNC
- CivilTulloch Engineering
- GeotechnicalTerraprobe
- CodeCHM
- Interior photographyAmanda Thirkill
