Luca Fontana's Plank Factory: A Walkable Timber Roofscape in Vancouver

Luca Fontana has introduced The Plank Factory, an innovative mass timber center in Vancouver that reimagines industrial architecture as a public space. Situated close to Stanley Park, this initiative flips the conventional factory model by integrating production areas with public pathways, ensuring that the manufacturing process is both visible and accessible. The structure boasts a series of intersecting pitched roofs over expansive naves, designed to house large timber machinery without interruptions. This roof design captures rainwater, channeling it towards the coast, thus enhancing its functionality in Vancouver's rainy climate. Inspired by the plank-house traditions of Pacific Northwest Indigenous communities, Fontana incorporates wide roof designs and passive ventilation on an industrial scale. Notably, a network of outdoor walkways on the roofs enables visitors to observe robotic fabrication and timber processing from above. This blend of creation and observation transforms the factory into a civic space, merging industry with public infrastructure. The project was entered into Design Unlimited's competition and featured in designboom, edited by Iñaki Laguardia.