First Nation in B.C. develops prefabricated housing system from locally-sourced wood

A home described as the first of its kind now stands in the Nak’azdli Whuten community near Fort St. James, B.C.

The home is a prototype for an Indigenous-led housing system that uses low-grade locally-sourced wood to produce prefabricated housing kits for northern communities.

The concept is to take trees from the local territory, mill them locally, and then have local workers use that lumber to build panels, which are then used to construct a house in a matter of days.

“This house means security not only in housing, but in economics and community longevity,” said Nak’azdli Whuten member Elky Taylor.

“We have limited economics in Fort St. James and to create a secondary industry with our timber is something that's been a long time coming and we're hoping to see success in this pilot project.”

The pilot project was born out of a collaboration between Nak’azdli Whuten Development Corp. and Deadwood Innovations, a forestry startup based in Fort St. James.

They partnered with researchers at the University of Northern British Columbia’s Wood Innovation Research Lab to develop the prefabricated mass timber panel system.

Housing for northern communities

Mass timber is a category of wood products created by bonding together layers of wood to form strong structural components like panels, beams, and posts.

Deadwood Innovations CEO Owen Miller says the model home is the first of its kind as mass timber construction is typically used for large-scale buildings in urban centres and not regional housing for rural communities.

"Our approach is all about tapping into local lumber, resources and expertise to build housing that aligns with community and cultural needs, is sustainable and delivers affordable homes built to last," he said.

“Because all the panels are pre-designed and prefabricated in the factory environment the quality control can be much better compared to an on-site build,” said Jianhui Zhou, UNBC associate professor in wood engineering.

“This approach enables us to build more houses in a more efficient and high quality way.”

Zhou says the technology allows for Nak'azdli to use local material and resources to address housing availability challenges faced by many Indigenous and northern communities.

“The idea here is to commercialize a company that will produce mass timber houses within the region,” said John-Paul Wenger, CEO of Nak’azdli Whuten Development Corp.

“You can build the panels through the winter months, and then in the summer you can erect the houses a lot quicker. The idea would be instead of producing two or three houses, we could maybe do 10 houses in this area with our construction crew and local contractors.”

‘Watching logs leave the community’ 

The two-storey show home has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a loft and an open-concept kitchen and living room. The mass timber panels are exposed on three sides of the home.

Architect Neil Prakash said he was initially working on another building for the community when he became involved with the pilot project.

“We were watching a lot of logging trucks leave the community,” said Prakash. “We were sort of musing that wouldn't it be great if instead of logs leaving the community that it was actually finished building panels.”

The home’s mass timber floor, walls and roof panels were produced locally at the former Tl'oh Forest Products finger-joint plant, which is now being used by Deadwood Innovations to upgrade lumber.

Prakash said because the Tl'oh plant was an existing facility where they could build the panels locally in Fort St. James, it seemed like a natural fit.

Custom designs

Structural engineer Mike Gehloff says although the show home is two storeys, the panel system supports a range of custom designs. They can use the panels to create anything from a cabin to a ranch-style bungalow to a larger five-bedroom house, so homes can be tailored to the needs of different communities.

“The true power of this type of structure or approach is it can be done very localized,” he said. “It is smaller entities that supply for the local market, thus providing more and more local labour.”

Wenger says the home will be used as a model home for the next year and a half, after which it will be given to a Nak’azdli family or elder.

In the meantime, Taylor says, the pilot project is creating a lot of excitement within the community.

“It is something that instills a bit of pride in our people to have this here to say, ‘This is what we can do and we're ready.’”