"Little Flower" Monastery in British Columbia, Canada

The "Little Flower" monastery was built in 2015, situated in beautiful scenery of green meadows, mountains, and crystal-clear lakes. The little monastery is equipped with 18 bedrooms, a chapel, a dining room, a kitchen, and a conference room.

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Timber Structure of Little Flower Monastery

The building was constructed entirely from timber. In total, 3.385 m² (36,436 ft²) of cross‑laminated timber panels and 24 m³ (848 ft³) of glued-laminated timber were used. The engineers Berger and Gadner from Merano performed the structural analysis. The whole supporting structure was analyzed as a 3D model in RFEM.

Structure

The 3D model was created in AutoCAD and imported to Dlubal Software using the interface integrated in RFEM.

The cross‑laminated timber surfaces for the roof and wall elements were entered as orthotropic surfaces with a stiffness matrix. Linear hinges with spring stiffnesses corresponding to the fasteners used were also arranged at the connection points.

Seismic design was performed in the RF‑DYNAM add-on module according to the Canadian seismic standard NBC 2005.

Structural Design	Structural Analysis Dr. Ing. Berger, Dr. Ing. Gadner Meran, Italy
Construction	Construction AHC-Derix, Canada Engineering Styxworks LLC, USA styxworks.com
Investor	The Order of Discalced Carmelites Canada