BEIJING - Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell hammered in the final nail today in a three-storey apartment building to open the seventh annual Green Building Show, a three-day conference showcasing green, energy-efficient construction.

The "Green Home Canada" display is part of an ongoing marketing strategy to increase the use of B.C. wood in walk-up apartment buildings in China.

The Green Home Canada modular building uses B.C. wood and was assembled in three days by Suzhou Crownhomes Co. to showcase the ease and efficiency of wood frame construction. The building is situated at a main entrance to the Beijing International Convention Centre and includes a boardroom for Bell and B.C. trade mission delegates to meet with Chinese investors and customers.

The building features exterior finishing on the front side, along with interior decorating in one of the suites. The construction shell has been left exposed on the upper two levels to demonstrate the wood-frame walls, floors, stairs, trusses and other building-system components.

The walk-up apartment sector, which represents B.C.'s biggest potential breakthrough in the Chinese housing market, has a growing interest in wood-frame construction. China averages as many as seven million housing-unit starts per year in the walk-up apartment style. In its latest national five-year plan, the Chinese government committed to building 10 million affordable housing units in 2011.

The Green Home Canada display is also another step to strengthen relations with the Chinese central government's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD).

The modular apartment is part of an agreement signed last March by the Province of British Columbia, Government of Canada, and MOHURD. In a follow-up meeting last November, B.C. and Canada committed to demonstrating the speed, ease, and environmental benefits of modular wood-frame construction at the Green Building Show sponsored by MOHURD.

Quick Facts:

• B.C. shipped 390,000 cubic metres (246 million board feet) of softwood lumber to China in January 2011, more than double the volume shipped a year earlier.
• Green Home Canada was constructed from spruce/pine/fir lumber, 500 sheets of oriented strand board (OSB), laminated veneer lumber (LVL) beams, decorative cedar and some structural hemlock.
• The wood used for this project came from a Crownhomes warehouse stocked with product from Tolko, Weyerhaeuser, Dunkley, Interfor and Canfor.
• More than 30 workers assembled the pre-fabricated sections in the 72-hour window.
• This project was a live demonstration. Assembly started the evening of March 24 and finished the night before the Green Building Show opened.
• The apartment building features nine units. Total size of the project is 776 square metres.
• Green Home Canada was built by Crownhomes, a developer based in the Suzhou area. Crownhomes is one of the most experienced wood-frame builders in China, having completed 300 wood-frame projects since they were established in 2001.
• Crownhhomes has done excellent work on the Canada-BC Wenchuan Earthquake Reconstruction Project. They built the Mianyang Rehabilitation Centre and currently are working on the Beichuan Elderly Care Centre as well as the Market Street mixed-use primary school/retail project near Chengdu.
• The March 28-30 Green Building Show is expected to draw more than 2,000 visitors from China's housing and construction industry.
• The theme of the 2011 conference is "Green Building: Reduce Carbon, Increase Quality - Green Buildings Improve City Life".

Learn More:

• Photos from the 2011 trade mission to China:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcgovphotos/sets/72157626341848714/
• B-roll video and photos of pre-assembly at the Crownhomes factory:
  http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/pab/media/china/2011/
• The International Conference on Green and Energy-efficient Building & New Technologies and Products Expo (commonly referred to as the Green Building Show):
  http://www.chinagb.net/gbmeeting/igebc7/english.shtml
• Canada-BC Wenchuan Earthquake Reconstruction Project:
  http://www.canada-bc-512quakereconstruction.org/default.asp

Contact:

Cheekwan Ho
Public Affairs Officer
250 387-4592