New school should be wood
As I regularly drive by the slowly developing framework for the new $100 million Cowichan high school, I am annoyed and disappointed with our school board and the B.C. government. Clearly this new building is likely being built with steel and concrete — both carbon unfriendly building materials that take much longer to build with than wood. My tax dollars are being used to buy building materials when we have our own superior alternatives right here on Vancouver Island.
British Columbia’s Wood First Policy was implemented in 2009 requiring wood to be considered as the primary building material in all new publicly funded buildings. Mass timber and beautiful wood focused buildings are now commonplace globally. Wood prices right now are the lowest they have been in years. In fact, B.C. sawmills are currently being shut down due to a wood glut in the North American market.
Wood is a very carbon friendly building product and most people prefer the beauty and resilience and calmness that comes from living and working in a wooden building — that’s why more than 95 per cent of our new homes are made of wood. Wood comes from renewable, certified and sustainably managed forests and the carbon in it is stored in the new building.
Architects and designers are creating stunning new wood-based institutional buildings. The Richmond Olympic Oval is a great example of an awesome B.C. wood building. Langford has some very attractive mass timber buildings.
Why did our school board and B.C. government choose the wrong building materials for the new school? I hope those politicians and bureaucrats planning our new hospital will smarten up and discover the many merits of using wood for that billion-dollar investment.
One of the primary objectives of the new 1,500 student high school is to reflect the culture of the Cowichan people. How does steel and concrete honour that culture?
The Cowichan Valley has a very long history of wood use going back millennia with the Cowichan people who used wood for energy, culture, art, housing and transportation. We have world class sawmills here that produce quality renewable timber. Governments need to make environmentally responsible choices.
W.E. (Bill) Dumont
Cobble Hill