Orchard Commons’ thoughtful and dynamic design meets the specific mandate laid out by the Point Grey Campus Plan: To animate the main campus at a local level by providing vibrant centres in which students can live, study, socialize and have access to services to meet their daily needs, thus enhancing the overall student experience.

Orchard Commons is home to a diverse group of young adults from across the globe and combines student housing, academic uses and amenities for students. The project consists of two 18 storey residential towers, a four storey academic building and a two storey dining and events / shared amenities building. Designed with the key mandate to cultivate positive social interaction with the intent to encourage academic success, a range of social spaces have been provided, including three storeys of interconnected lounges in the residential towers. The project is approximately 500,000 SF in size with rooms for 1,048 residence beds and a daycare. Orchard Commons is targeting LEED Gold certification.

A key challenge for ## was accommodating the large dining hall and associated areas beneath the south residential tower. The solution we adopted involved deep transfer beams at level three which take the loads down through a very limited number of columns. These beams, in turn, support the 20-metre-span glulam beams which support the wooden roof of the dining hall. Integrating these various elements to meet the architect’s desire was crucial to the design. 

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