Steel offers range of aesthetic possibilities

The flowing form of the roof above the new Sunset Community Centre in Vancouver is taking shape, realizing architect Bing Thom’s vision for a structure at home in the ebb and flow of nature, history and society.

Product effectiveness

Product's efficiency boosts popularity of steel buildings

Correspondent

Supporting the lofty words is steel, which project manager Eric Boelling said was the most efficient means of creating the structure.

“They’re all straight but we simply rotate them as we move along,” Boelling said. “It’s the cheapest way to do it, as opposed to wood.” A competitive material cost is just part of the reason steel is finding its place in a growing number of new projects.

Computer-assisted design has also helped architects, engineers and fabricators become more creative.

“People have had the freedom to make more elaborate things with steel,” said Henny Mooy, an engineer with Solid Rock Steel Fabricating in Surrey. Mooy considers Sunset one of the more complex projects he’s handled in his 40-year career.

“There’s hardly anything square or straight,” he said. The combination of greater design capabilities, and a cost that compares favourably to alternative materials, has translated into a steady stream of projects for fabricators.

Some shops have seen sales increase 30 per cent over the past year, said Peter Timler, Western region executive director for the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC). The gains appear to have legs, with some fabricators booked well into the future.

“We don’t think it will be a spike right now and then dropping off,” Timler said.

Steel is attracting widespread attention, prompting CISC to update its code of standards and develop guidelines for the use of exposed steel. Timler hopes the documents will be available this year. Part of the revival of steel is coming from multifamily developers, which Timler said are using steel in framing.

He said steel makes sense for builders if it reduces costs by $3 to $4 a square foot. This usually happens in larger projects over four storeys in height, a fact brought home for Dean Woodworth, general manager of RMT Contracting Ltd.

RMT is contractor on The Avenue, a 15-unit residential project Salient Group is developing in Vancouver’s Point Grey neighbourhood.

Having seen steel used in a multi-family project Bastion Development Corp. undertook at Arbutus and 12th Avenue in Vancouver, Woodworth believed steel could also work in Point Grey.

But the complexities of the smaller Avenue project prevented him from achieving any real economies.

That doesn’t mean that he’d do without steel altogether in a small project, but where possible he would use non-structural steel-stud infills.

A smaller project where steel features prominently is Watermark restaurant, whose exposed steel columns contribute to a modernist aesthetic recognized with a B.C.-region Design Award last year from the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. Drawing inspiration from Paris’ Maison de Verre as well as Vancouver’s Jericho Sailing Centre, A.A. Robins Architects took advantage of the small scale of the project to feature exposed steel.

Smaller projects don’t require exposed steel to be fire-rated, reducing construction costs.

“This was a real chance to express the structure of the building,” said John Hemsworth, project lead. But given increases in the cost of steel since the project began in 2002, Hemsworth doesn’t expect a similar building to rise in Vancouver in the near future.

Though price increases have moderated significantly since those seen between 2003 and 2004, Timler said prices are still 25 per cent above the costs seen a few years ago.

Demand will contribute to a further increase this year, but Timler doesn’t expect the percentage change will be in the single digits. “Prices will not be volatile,” he said.