Prefabrication at Vienna House

A demonstration of Modern Methods of Construction

Multi-storey residential buildings that use prefabricated components perform optimally when they are designed that way from the outset. At Vienna House, prefabrication was part of the Project Charter, and an essential element of the demonstration of innovation that made it part of CMHC’s National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative and the BC Mass Timber Demonstration Program. Through our research on Vienna House, Scius gained insights into the benefits gained and issues addressed as part of the prefabricated construction.

The “BC Housing Builder Insight: Vienna House Lessons Learned from Prefabrication” documents those insights so they may be shared with the construction community. Vienna House used prefabricated exterior closed wall panels and interior open panels that were manufactured by TAG Panels in Squamish, B.C. The mass timber ceilings were manufactured by Kalesnikoff in Castlegar, B.C. The prefabricated balconies were manufactured in the U.K. by Sapphire Balconies and shipped flat-packed to B.C. Each component was designed to a high precision and to work with the others, as well as site-built components, with minimal adjustments once they arrived. This up-front effort in design allowed the 123-unit, six-storey building structure to be completed by Kindred Construction and Seagate Mass Timber in just over six months.

The team encountered several challenges, including coordination, weather disruption, and the task of fitting high-precision panels with the varying level of concrete. However, the benefits were identified alongside lessons on how to approach these challenges differently on future projects.
Prefabrication was one of many innovations for this ambitious project. The 11-part series of Builder Insights explores these to improve awareness of the reasons to implement them and the issues to be mindful of.