The new hotel will be 175 feet (53 metres) tall, slightly taller than Brock Commons Tallhouse, which had been the world's tallest mass timber building since 2017.

The architecture practice Arno Matis Architecture and Urbanism has unveiled plans to build a 175-metre-tall hotel on land the city acquired from the railway company Canadian Pacific, on Granville Island in Vancouver; in effect, an 18-storey timber tower will be built.

Under the plan, the 168-room hotel will be taller than the University of British Columbia's student residence Brock Commons Tallhouse, which stands 174 feet tall and was for a time the world's tallest mass timber building. According to Arno Matis Architecture and Urbanism, the new building will become North America's tallest hotel built from timber.

Speaking to Daily Hive, representatives of the practice said that the hotel scheme and its details, which may change somewhat, will help the city address a "chronic shortage of accommodation" and include very preliminary conceptual artistic renderings depicting a slender building with an organically inspired exoskeleton façade, active hotel spaces at ground level, and indoor and outdoor hotel amenity areas on the tower's landscaped roof.

The new project was drawn up after Canada's third-largest province changed its building regulations to allow British Columbia developers to construct timber buildings of up to 18 storeys, 50% more than the old rules permitted.

British Columbia's Building and Fire Code (BC Codes 2024), which came into force in March last year, is part of a range of programmes aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions and decarbonising construction. It was introduced after Canada joined a coalition of countries in 2023 committed to promoting timber construction.

Pictured: Preliminary conceptual artistic rendering of the mass timber hotel tower at 1580 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver; courtesy of Arno Matis Architecture & Urbanism