Decoding Timber Towers is the fourth competition presented by Urbanarium to encourage dialogue and design investigations to promote housing affordability and address the effects of climate change. Entrants are asked to consider design solutions for mass timber residential and mixed-use buildings that, as with the earlier Missing Middle, Mixing Middle, and Decoding Density competitions, also explore how housing innovations and higher densities are constrained by building code, zoning, and other regulations.
This competition explores the challenges facing designers, builders, and developers in replacing concrete residential high-rise buildings with an industry-wide approach to deliver low carbon buildings more competitively, while maintaining a high standard of comfort, sociability, and connection to land. It highlights a systems-thinking approach to optimize the use of BC timber, prefab and modular buildings in the 8 to 20+ storey range.
Compete in Decoding Timber Towers. $50,000 in cash prizes! Competition results will be shared widely through videos, a publication, a press campaign, various websites, Urbanarium Studio workshops and Woodrise 2025, a global congress on mid and high-rise timber construction and buildings coming to Vancouver in September.
The Jury
Andrew Lawrence
Structural Engineer | Arup Fellow, Director
@
Arup
Brenda Knights
Housing Developer | CEO
@
BC Indigenous Housing Society
Emilie Adin
Planner | President
@
Planning Institute of British Columbia
Ian Boyle
Structural Engineer | Principal
@
Fast + Epp
Dr. Gary Hack
Planner | Professor Emeritus
@
UPenn, MIT
Mingyuk Chen
Architect, AIBC | Associate Director
@
LWPAC
Natalie Telewiak
Architect AIBC, AIA | Principal
@
MGA | Michael Green Architecture
Norm Leech
Community Leader | Executive Director
@
Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House
Richard Henriquez
Retired Architect, AIBC | Founding Principal
@
Henriquez Partners Architecture
Sailen Black
Architect, AIBC | Senior Green Building Planner, Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability
@
City of Vancouver
Press
Schedule
| Early Bird Registration Opens* | Monday, March 31, 2025 |
| Site Allocations Begin** | Monday, April 7, 2025 |
| Early Bird Registration Deadline | Tuesday April 14, 2025 |
| Deadline for Questions Round 1*** | Thursday, April 10, 2025 |
| Answers Posted Round 1 | Tuesday, April 15, 2025 |
| Deadline for Questions Round 2 | Thursday, April 24, 2025 |
| Answers Posted Round 2 | Tuesday, April 29, 2025 |
| Registration Deadline | Friday, May 2, 2025 |
| Urbanarium City Debate: Is Mass Timber Worth the Risks | Monday May 5, 2025 |
| Deadline for Questions Round 3 | Thursday, May 8, 2025 |
| Answers Posted Round 3 | Tuesday, May 13, 2025 |
| Submission Deadline | Monday, August 25, 2025 |
| Jury Deliberation | Saturday, September 6, 2025 |
| Awards Presentation | Monday, September 15, 2025 |
| Woodrise Congress Winners Showcase | September 22-26, 2025 |
| Party! Publication & Solutions Video | Monday, November 24, 2025 |
*Early bird registration will be open with a discounted fee of $95 CAD until Friday April 11. Standard registration fee is $140 per team, with a student rate of $55 per team (all members must be students). Registrants before Friday, April 11 at 11:59pm PST will receive their preferred site selection.
**The first wave of site packages will be distributed on or after Monday April 7, with subsequent packages being distributed on an ongoing basis.
***Question Rounds: Competitors have the opportunity to submit questions in three rounds. Answers to competitor questions will be posted online for all entrants.
Prize Money
| Overall Prize Awards |
| First Prize $15,000 CAD |
| Second Prize $10,000 CAD |
| Third Prize $5,000 CAD |
| 5 Honourable Mentions $2,000 CAD ea. |
| Digital Award |
| Innovation in Systemization and Standardization Award $10,000 CAD |
Competitor Questions Round 1
Submissions are not asked to comply with a specific zoning schedule, and in fact are encouraged to “ignore existing guidelines” if doing so unlocks some critical potential. However, it will be up to the entrant to provide a design rationale supporting the project’s “relationship to adjacent properties and streets.” Site coverage may also be considered from a stormwater management, urban vegetation, and livability perspective.
The Digital award does not include specific criteria, nor is it looking for specific results. New digital technologies could be proposed to increase efficiencies in supply chains, transportation, labour, fabrication, etc. A successful proposal should demonstrate how it would harness these technologies in a way that can expand low carbon housing in new and meaningful ways.
Affordability can be interpreted a number of ways, and tenure type is part of this equation. The brief invites entrants to explore tenure as well as “legal mechanisms for ownership and financing” as part of their proposal, and innovation in this area will be considered as part of the judging criteria.
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