BCIT has been working on a wide range of projects that offer opportunities for multidisciplinary learning on campus through Living Labs since 2007. These projects utilize the natural features, infrastructure, and operations of our campuses to advance sustainability.
New buildings, like the Tall Timber Student Housing and the Trades and Technology Complex, allow us to share experience of innovative construction approaches like mass timber technology, and passive house in partnership with leading industry consultants.
Our schools run Living Labs projects spanning topics from ecological restoration, power transmission and generation, to energy systems, building technology, and materials. These often make use of our existing infrastructure to test new technologies.
Highlights of current Living Labs
— CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT
Tall Timber Student Housing
The Tall Timber Student Housing project provides affordable, sustainable housing for 469 BCIT students. It’s the first new student housing on the BCIT campus in over 40 years. The interior courtyard will link to the reimagined South Commons to enhance the pedestrian experience on campus. The use of mass timber construction will ensure this is a sustainable building as well as a beautiful centrepiece for the Burnaby campus.
Trades and Technology Complex
The Trades and Technology Complex project will create a world-leading, adaptive learning environment for 21st-century trades education. Anchored by the Concert Properties Centre for Trades & Technology, the Complex includes multiple elements including the Robert Bosa Carpentry Pavilion, a Marine and Mass Timber Workshop, and a Campus Services Building. The project also includes the daylighting and ecological restoration of a section of Guichon Creek that is currently culverted.
— SCHOOL & APPLIED RESEARCH
Elevated Lab
The Centre for Architectural Ecology supports the academic, design, and construction communities to understand architectural and building acoustics and advance living architecture technologies in this region. The Elevated Lab serves as a living lab and collaborative catalyst within and between various departments at BCIT, including Carpentry, Steel Trades and Piping Trades, as well as Forestry and Natural Areas Management, Indigenous Initiatives, Campus head chefs, and Campus Planning and Facilities and more.
— FACULTY-LED PROJECTS
Guichon Creek Environmental Monitoring & Analysis Project
In 2021, a water monitoring station prototype was installed in Guichon Creek on BCIT’s Burnaby campus, as part of an initiative with Vancouver International Airport (YVR) partnered with the BCIT Centre for Internet of Things to obtain technical expertise and provide Living Labs for students and faculty to research new processes and technology from a wide variety of applications.
