Housing Growth Innovation (HGI) Program

Canada

In collaboration with Perkins & Wil, ASPECT helped develop the DIGITAL Housing Growth Innovation program. This initiative is focused on developing scalable solutions to help address Canada’s housing crisis. This study concluded that the use of prefabricated, modular, mass timber systems are a key strategy in accelerating housing delivery while supporting national economic and climate commitments.

The proposed system enables the rapid delivery of high-quality sustainable housing. Designed as six to eight-storey flexible floorplates, the approach is based on a rationalized structural grid, a concise kit of prefabricated components, modular planning principles, and fully coordinated building services. Together, these elements streamline design, approvals, manufacturing, and onsite assembly. By leveraging off-site construction and low-carbon materials, the system improves efficiency while reducing embodied carbon.

Our role on the project included the initial analysis of mass timber manufacturing capabilities in Canada, ensuring spatial planning was oriented towards a maximum diversity of supply options. ASPECT also developed a hybrid point-supported and post-and-beam structural kit-of-parts concept, which ensured flexibility of the unit mix, service routing, and overall footprint aligned with the program goal of applying the system to a broad range of sites. This research sought to better characterize seismic and climatic demands in different locations, which could then be mapped to appropriate lateral solutions, facilitating a program-based model of delivery.

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Renderings courtesy of Perkins + Will

ArchitectPerkins + WillStatusStudy Completed (Industry Roll-Out: 2026)