Hastings Park Childcare Centre, in Vancouver, is a fantastic 7,100 square foot facility that sits beautifully located on Renfrew Street on a sloped hill facing mountain views and opening out to a lovely view of the racetrack.  It has 44 licensed child care spaces for infants up to 5 years old. The program is operated by Kiwassa Neighbourhood House.

The facility was built by Hastings Racecourse/Great Canadian Gaming Corporation and is owned by the City of Vancouver. The facility was built to LEED standards which is a certification program for design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.  The building was designed by PJ Lovick Architect.

The building itself boasts multiple green roofs as well as an atrium and angled roofs  to allow an abundance of light to penetrate into the multi-level lobby and act as a light beacon for the site. Meanwhile the front of the building has been kept low to minimize the scale.

Concord Painting used a whole schwack of our Broda Clarity Wood/Stone and Broda Pro-Thane Ultra Rich Cabinet Trim on this project and it looks amazing. Concord never fail to do an outstandning job and we’re very pleased to be able to work with them on awesome projects such as this.

Here is a beautiful home on the lake in Nelson, BC,  built by Purcell Timber Frames, who also hail from Nelson. CBR Products worked closely with Purcell and Co. to come up with a custom colour, in our Broda Pro-Tek-Tor SLT (Siding Log & Timber), for the trim on this building. The colour was coined “Gunsmoke Blue” and looks amazing in contrast to the bright and lively siding which also has Broda Pro-Tek-Tor SLT (Siding Log & Timber) in the colour 111 Natural.

Amazing home, great project, fantastic clients and our high performance ec0 coatings. Couldn’t get a better mix of awesomeness if you ask me!

WOOD FINISH COATINGS FOR A BEAUTIFUL HOME IN NELSON, BC, CANADA. In this image we see a close-up view of tall two storey timber frame log home by the lake. This timber frame house built by Purcell Timber Frame uses of Pro-Tek-Tor SLT (Siding, Log, Timber) wood finish coatings: The 111 Natural colour used for the deck, sidings, posts and beams contrasts warmly with the darker colour that was custom-designed for the trim. The lower portion of the front of the house shows stone work encompassing the lower mid section. Further reinforcing that this home was coated with Broda high performance eco coatings by CBR Products is the solar panel visible on the roof.

Jay Watts from AFM Safecoat has recently given us these tips and points on how to maintain your AFM Safecoat Oils. So if you have some lovely wooden furniture that has been graced with these awesome products then here’s a break down on just how to maintain their beauty and luster.

Wood is a natural material that moves and changes ever so slightly when exposed to humidity, heat or cold. Properly
sealed and maintained wood surfaces are durable, beautiful and easy to use, but it is important to carefully follow the
installation and care and maintenance instructions for your specific type of finish.

Regular Cleaning: Vinegar, water, and AFM SuperClean make a great combination for floors or other wooden surfaces. Never pour water on the floor. Use damp mops only so that water does not penetrate wood flooring. It should be thoroughly wrung and not dripping. Unlike regular wax finishes, Naturals oils can be damp mopped without worry of severe damage to finish.

Do Not: Use ammonia. Do Not: Use dust cleaners. Do Not: Track dirt, clean immediately. Do Not: Use other floor cleaning products unless recommended by AFM. Do Not: Use an upright vacuum with beater bars. They can cause dents in your floor’s finish. Do Not: Use any dust treatment. Unless it is approved by your floor’s manufacture, the wrong treatment can make your floor dull and cause problems the next time you refinish. Do Not: Use throw rugs with rubber or vinyl backing without checking to determine if they will affect your floor’s finish. Some materials in the backing can react with certain floor finishes, discoloring or causing the finish to become dull. Wipe up food and other spills promptly with a dry cloth or paper towel. Use a slightly moistened cloth for sticky spills if necessary. Then wipe the surface dry with another cloth or paper towel. Eliminate foot traffic with hard heels or heels that are damaged. When you move anything, always lift and place; never slide. For heavy objects, slip a square of carpet, pile side down, under the points touching the floor. Attach felt or nylon glides to legs, and check the glides occasionally for dirt, which can scratch the floor.

Removing Stains: Dried milk or food stains: You may remove the superficial dried material with a sharpened blade. Be careful not to
scratch the finish. Rub spot with damp cloth. Rub dry. Re-coat for waxed finish. Stains and spots caused by standing
water can be removed by rubbing the spot with No. 1 steel wool and re-coat. Lightly buff. If this fails, sand lightly with
fine sandpaper 90 to 120 grit. Clean spot and surrounding area using No. 1 or 0 steel wool and Naturals Diluent or a
mild solution of AFM SuperClean. Let floor dry. Apply matching finish on floor, feathering out into surrounding area. Buff
after finish dries thoroughly.

Dark spot removal: Old, persistent, or stains that have penetrated surface may have to be sanded and refinished. Clean spot and surrounding area with No. 2 steel wood and Naturals Diluent. Thoroughly wash spotted area with household vinegar. Allow it to remain for three or four minutes. If spot remains, sand with fine sandpaper, follow the grain pattern of the wood, feathering out 3 to 4 inches into surrounding area, re-coat and polish. Mold or mildew damage: After seeing that proper ventilation is provided for the room. The mold can usually be removed with AFM SuperClean and No. 1 steel wool. A rinse with Clorox household bleach and water may be necessary to kill spores. Use caution when using bleach. If mold is under the finish, refinishing is necessary. Chewing gum, crayon, candle wax: Scrape the major residue with a razor blade. Apply ice until the deposit is brittle enough to crumble off. Naturals Diluent can remove remaining residue. Cigarette burns: If not too deep, steel wool will often remove them. Moisten steel wool with soap and water to increase effectiveness. Re-coat and buff.

Oil and grease stains: Remove with AFM SuperClean and water followed by a buffing with AFM Naturals Diluent. Since the Naturals Oil Sealers penetrate into the wood, the finish can last as long as 3-6 months or more. Simply dribbling a few drops of water onto the surface of the wood top will tell you whether it is time to reapply the finish. If the water beads up, the surface is still protected; if the water soaks into the surface, it’s time to renew your finish. Renew the AFM Naturals Oil Sealers on a regular basis. All exposed wooden surfaces should be oiled. Depending upon use and household conditions, a thin layer of either of the Naturals Oil Sealers should be applied once every three to six months or more as needed.

Renewing your finish: Repair any gouges or cuts by sanding lightly, then clean the surface thoroughly, and dry it. After the surface has dried completely, apply a thin layer either of the AFM Naturals Oil Sealers to all exposed surfaces with a sponge or brush. Let the finish soak into the wood for 30-45 minutes, then take a disposable sanding pad and sand the wet surface thoroughly. Take a clean rag and wipe off every bit of the remaining finish. Take another clean rag, and using plenty of elbow grease, rub the surface until all of the finish is completely rubbed into the wood. Let the wood set overnight before using.

HAPPY MAINTAINING!!

Our friends at Structurlam have been doing some big things. Like building 58 of these 107-foot long mammoth beams for a new building being constructed at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

This is no ordinary building. The original Kimbell Gallery, designed by Louis Kahn, has become an architectural Mecca, so expanding on it was a controversial process. Ultimately global architectural icon Renzo Piano was given the $125 Million task, and the 90,000-square-foot addition will contain galleries, studios, classrooms, a library, and an auditorium.

The design uses these massive wood beams to create huge open-area spaces. Each beam is some 5 feet thick, and they were coated with a special BRODA ® Clarity WS formula. The CBR team worked closely with Structurlam and the architects over a period of months to develop a special grey/white colour, as the aesthetic effect of the beams in such a world-class artistic space must be perfect.

Once completed and coated, metal hardware will be added and the beams will be slowly trucked from Penticton BC, to Fort Worth, Texas.

Read more about the building in the Architectural Record here.

Click here for a tour of the design.

Image: South view of the building design, 2010
© Renzo Piano Building Workshop

The South Bonson Community Centre is the heart of the Pitt Meadow community of Bonson.  The setting is beautifully located on the banks of the Fraser River on the site of an old saw mill. There are clusters of townhouses, condos, and a small grouping of supporting retail shops with the Community Centre sitting proudly in the middle.

This 2-storey, 11,000 sq.ft. building, which opened Sept 17,2011, will provide a variety of recreational and meeting spaces for the community. The building is designed to maximize energy by utilizing solar panels on it’s roof. and subterranean water collection is also utilized for water efficiency. The entire building is constructed using materials with low environmental impact and also boasts reclaimed and local materials…notably recycled wood from the Park Family barn.

CBR Products was involved in the design process by providing brushed out sample on various wood types and colour matching services to Andrea Bolin from Ramsay Worden Architects. We have worked with Andrea many times and can’t wait to work with her again in the near future. We are very proud to be a part of this project.

All of the wood elements on the South Bonson Community Centre are protected by Broda Coatings which has since achieved a LEED Gold Platinum certification which is the first building in Pitt Meadows to receive such a rating.

Wendy MacDonald, who has worked with CBR Products for many years, recently visited the site with her husband and they both found the place to very inviting saying, “We visited on a cold and foggy morning…the Community Centre seemed to materialize before our eyes, the sun sparkling off the glass as the fog lifted. There was a walking group gathering inside and it looked very warm and welcoming….there was a fire place going and cozy seating!”

The pictures here are just a few of many fantastic images of this project. Visit the City of Pitt Meadows’ Facebook page to see more great photos.

I was recently perusing the interwebs when something caught my eye. Bark houses it said. I thought, pfft, nah….that’d never hold up, but I couldn’t be more wrong! The home of writer Nan Chase has proven to be an amazing and environmentally sustainable way of using up Poplar bark that would otherwise be left to rot or mulched away to nothing. Kudos goes to the creators…….this truly is an awesome ‘green’ product!

Check out this awesome story by Nan Chase herself.

It took more than a decade of planning and 17 months of construction, but VanDusen Gardens’ new centerpiece of green building is now open to the public. And we are proud to say BRODA® Coatings are a part of it.

The $21.9 Million Visitor Centre was designed to meet the LEED Platinum level of excellence, and is also being registered for Living Building Challenge status, considered an even more rigorous measurement of building sustainability as it considers a building’s long-term performance in key areas including energy, health, siting and overall “beauty.”

One of the most impressive features of the organically-influenced structure is its wavy wood interior ceiling, built from Douglas Fir and coated with BRODA® CLARITY Low-VOC Acrylic finish. A bridge leading to the facility was made from wood recovered from the former covered walkway, and is coated with BRODA® PRO-TEK-TOR Water Borne Natural Oil Finish.

The roof also has a solar water heating system that helps the building be energy self-sufficient and “carbon neutral”, using only as much energy as it produces. Other special features include systems for recovering “grey water” (used for washing hands and dishes) and “black water” (toilet water) that will be processed in an on-site bio-reactor and released into the garden.

The building’s green roof also absorbs and collects rainwater for use. Check out the great time-lapse video of the green roof installation by Houston Landscapes. (video below)

The VanDusen Gardens Visitor Centre was designed by Perkins+Will Architects with key roof elements designed and built by StructureCraft.

Our company was founded in Vancouver and Whistler, and even though our job is to make low-VOC coatings that protect buildings from the elements, we know we are all part of the natural world.

So to help lighten our footprint, CBR President Bill Willis recently completed the ClimateSmart for Business program. This 3-session program was designed to help businesses come up with innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s) and commit to ongoing improvements.

“I found it was a great way to get an intro to the issues and really make us think about our processes”, says Bill. “It was good to see we already had some good steps in place, like our programmable thermostat, but now we are also looking at a lighting audit and even adding solar hot water to the roof to pre-heat our processing water.”

Bill also hopes to pass on some of the energy savings to his staff. “They are the ones who will make this program work, so why not share some of the benefits? It’s a great way to get everyone involved.”

In the can, one acrylic coating looks pretty much like another. But at the chemical level, they can be quite different. One of the benefits of a water-based low-VOC coating is that wood is very receptive to the absorption of good old H20. This is positive news, as the deeper your pigments and film can penetrate, the longer lasting your coating should be.

This is where particle size comes into the equation. BRODA® CLARITY is made with extremely fine acrylic particles, which increase its effectiveness on wood, stone and concrete. The BRODA® pigments are also ultra-fine, so if you want to tint your CLARITY base, the protection remains strong. (With over 50 standard colours and an infinite variety of custom tints available, that’s a whole spectrum of acrylic options)

Many leading architects have come to trust the low-VOC’s and high-performance qualities of BRODA® CLARITY for major projects like the Richmond 2010 Skating Oval and the new LEED Platinum VanDusen Gardens Visitor Centre.

So when you are specifying an acrylic coating, make sure it’s fine enough to really sink in.

AFM recently put out their annual winter newsletter. It’s great reading with really good articles on such things as their recent acing of emissions tests, Hyundai USA using AFM Acrylacq in their 2012 vehicles and of course Jay’s Kitchen, a great read written by the man himself, Jay Watts.

Click here to read 2012 AFM Winter News and as always, stay tuned for more great articles coming your way in 2012!