Inside a new robotic housing factory in British Columbia, Canada

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Intelligent City’s new factory in British Columbia. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

Intelligent City, a Canadian company focused on innovation in housing, has offered a glimpse inside their new factory in Delta, British Columbia. The facility, which has now begun building mid-to-high-rise urban housing projects for Canada and the United States, will use advanced robotics to automatically assemble mass timber building systems.

The company was founded in 2008 by German-Canadian architect Oliver Lang and Canadian designer Cindy Wilson, who also comes from an architectural background with a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia. The team is currently working to deliver 2,880 homes in Canada and 1,400 homes in the United States, with delivery of their first projects expected in early 2022 in Vancouver.

The company’s approach is centered on the use of mass timber building systems, automated manufacturing, and parametric software to deliver urban housing systems. “An adaptable building platform made from large mass timber assemblies forms the foundation,” explains the company. “As a fire-safe, structurally rigid, and sustainable building material, mass timber can be used for high-rise applications 18 levels and higher.”

To offer flexibility, the company has developed an in-house automated software and manufacturing workflow which allows for high levels of customization between products without additional cost. The company describes the final balance between mass production and customization as “a consistent and reliable yet individualized delivery process for buildings.”

The topics of mass housing production, prefabrication, and the balance of the universal and individual were also investigated in our recent feature article on the future of modular architecture, which laid out one vision for future housing production grounded in universally-sized building components.

Product example. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

Meanwhile, several projects have recently been unveiled across the United States and internationally which rely on mass timber construction. These include White Arkitekter’s new mass timber tower in Sweden, KPF’s first mass timber hybrid tower in North America, and the topping out of LMN Architect’s mass timber business school at the University of Washington.