Due to the prohibitively high cost, developers have not yet embraced the construction of tall wood multi-unit residential buildings. The rising cost of concrete in Vancouver, combined with a cost premium associated with mid-rise concrete buildings, led to a feasibility study that demonstrates a “short wood” building can be comparable in cost to a concrete equivalent. Building codes currently prescribe noncombustible construction or encapsulated mass timber construction for residential buildings up to twelve storeys in height, with no distinction for lower-height mass timber buildings, thereby leading to construction inefficiencies and increased costs for wood mid-rise buildings. Short Wood 8 proposes an eight-storey prototype made up of CLT floor slabs, CLT shear walls and load bearing wood-frame walls that provides an innovative cost-competitive alternative to conventional concrete mid-rise residential buildings that exceed six storeys in height.