Robots and digital technology are being used to produce Passivhaus timber panels for an Indigenous people’s housing project in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Intelligent City, a company that specialises in mass timber housing, set up a factory at the end of 2021 to bring together panel design and production, two processes that are normally carried out separately and sequentially, the Journal of Commerce reports.
Production of commercial mass timber panels began in January 2024, with five industrial robots arranged in manufacturing assembly zones that together create a safe assembly line.
The remote-controlled robots lift, position and custom-cut panels of mass timber walls, floors and ceilings. Electrical channels and ventilation ducts are cut into the panels before they leave the factory.
The facility will supply the façade system for the BC Indigenous Housing Society’s Khupkhahpay’ay building, a nine-storey mass timber social housing project on the east side of Vancouver.
The panels will be installed in a basket-weave pattern around the exterior of the building. The façade will also incorporate Indigenous artwork to honour and celebrate Indigenous culture.
Intelligent City was founded in 2008.
The company focuses on timber buildings that are six to 18 storeys high. Currently, the maximum height of a mass timber building in British Columbia is 12 storeys but the provincial government is expected to amend building codes to allow mass timber construction to go to 18 storeys.
