Imagine a modern apartment building - made primarily out of timber

The building's beams and wall boards are constructed from spruce grown in sustainable forests. The facade, a pattern of tiles composed primarily of wood pulp, mimics slate.

And the whole thing was built in just 27 days.

At nine storeys high, Murray Grove in North London is the tallest wood-framed building in the world. It's also the inspiration for a new network of researchers, architects and engineers based at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

Launched last year, the Strategic Network in Innovative Wood Products and Building Systems is working to develop new technologies that allow the use of wood as a primary building material for mid- to high-rise structures.

It recently received a grant of $5.3 million over five years from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Heading the network is Ying-Hei Chui, former director of UNB's Wood Science and Technology Centre. For the last 20 years, Chui has worked to improve performance of engineered wood products and structural wood systems.

He believes the network's research could open up a huge market for Canada's forestry sector and make it less dependent on the housing market for business.

Wood's share in the mid-rise and non-residential construction markets could grow from about 10 per cent to as high as 57 per cent, a boost of about $3 billion per year for the industry, according to the university.

The technologies developed by the team would also provide cost-effective materials and methods to the construction industry, Chui said.

Wood floors and walls can be pre-fabricated in a factory and shipped to the site, cutting down on construction time, the researcher said. Lumber also weighs significantly less than traditional materials, which brings down the cost of the foundation, Chui said.

And because it takes little energy to install, wood is considered environmentally friendly, he added.

So far, building code regulations have prevented companies from using wood as a main material in mid- to high-rise buildings, mostly due to its flammability, Chui said.

But those rules are "based on old techniques," the researcher said. "Some of these limits may not be applicable given today's technologies."

The network's roughly 40 members plan to address those concerns and create new tools for engineers to draw up and analyze taller wood buildings. Up to 60 graduate and post-doctoral students will eventually participate in the network's projects.

One of the end results of these projects could be submissions to the building code committee to challenge the established standards, Chui said.

A number of the network's projects take place at UNB, including experiments looking at ways to combine wood with steel and concrete in a single building to strengthen the structure.

"Every material has strengths and weaknesses," Chui said. "By combining them, you cover the weaknesses of one with the strengths of another."

Combining wood with concrete, for example, increases fire protection, he said.

At the university's wood science lab, researchers use hydraulic test equipment to apply high loads wood structures, to check the materials' strength and durability, Chui said.

The researcher is working to develop a relatively new product called cross-laminated timber, the material used to build Murray Grove.

It consists of large wood slabs made by gluing layers of dimension lumber together so the grain of each layer is perpendicular to the next, a technique than reinforces the wood, Chui said. The slabs can then be used as flooring or wall panels.

A whole building - from the floor to the roof - could potentially be made of wood, using this technology, he said.

Experts in other locations are examining ways to boost wood's resistance to fire and its acoustic performance. Since the goal is to use wood in apartment buildings, it is crucial the material block out sound, Chui said.

The network's ties to industry mean new technologies could become available to architects and designers soon after they have been developed and tested. Researchers are working closely with FPInnovations, the national research arm of the forest products industry.

Chui said he hopes to complete many of these tools within the network's five-year mandate, but it's possible the projects will take longer to conclude.