A new university research institute looking at the development of affordable housing design and construction methods for northern Ontario sees its success dependent largely in how it connects with the communities around it.
“What sets this apart from a more theoretical research centre is how we take our research from lab to market and really engage with communities on real housing pilot projects where we become the link between community and industry,” says Steven Beites, director of the Institute for Northern Housing Innovation (INHI) at Laurentian University’s McEwen School of Architecture.
Beites says northern Ontario has been particularly susceptible to rising construction costs. In the past three-to-four years, costs have tripled and between 50 and 70 per cent of the costs to build a home are tied up in labour.
He believes the integration of technology into design and construction can bring the costs per square foot down while driving sustainable practices that help reduce embodied carbon emissions.
Calling the need for affordable housing in the north “incredibly pressing,” Beites says the INHI will test physical assemblies and work closely with partners outside the school to improve design and construction methods.
Graduate students conduct research into both architecture and engineering to arrive at possible solutions.
Beites, who has focused his graduate studio teaching at McEwen over the past three years on northern housing affordability and sustainability issues, says the INHI allows students to “dig deeper” into research and development.
“We can now work on these community projects over a long span.”
A priority is the research and development of prefab systems through mockup and prototype assemblies of wall, floor and roof assemblies for performance in northern climates, he says.
The institute provides manufacturing equipment such as CNC machines to help students with the construction of in-house assemblies. Robotic equipment will also play a role in advancing housing designs.
“It’s a hands-on understanding of assemblies and housing and they (students) are building it at one to one.”
The INHI will also host educational workshops for contractors – some of which will cover building practices aimed at lowering construction costs, improving efficiencies and production volume through prefabrication.
“We have a lot of great builders across the north and we’re trying to show them a secondary alternative on how to build, moving away from stick frame to prefab where they can maintain the same margins if not increase them,” he says.
The INHI is also looking into R&D through digital fabrication, robotics and advanced manufacturing.
While the development of prefabrication models is a priority at INHI, modular is not on the table.
Beites says in many cases modular is an impractical model for home construction because it requires a large amount of capital to build and operate a fabrication plant.
“Many of them (owners) have gone bankrupt because of the overhead – the massive kind of facility you need to build an entire home in an enclosed environment…prefab is a less of a financial commitment.”
Beites says through his graduate studios he has taken students overseas to Europe, to cities where technology such as prefabrication is driving change in home construction.
He says while the labour pool continues to shrink, a less talked about statistic that is worrying is the building industry is not attracting enough of the young tech-savvy minds needed to help move home building forward.
The INHI is funded by three government levels and is set up on a five-year agenda.
