Location: Woodstock, ON
Client: Indwell
Year of Completion: 2019
Final Construction Cost: $6,300,000
Architect of Record: Invizij Architects
This project is helping to lead the way towards Oxford County’s goal of using 100% renewable energy. It redeveloped a 1970s bungalow-style group home into 34 one-bedroom apartments for tenants living independently with supports. The project targets Passive House International certification, with net-positive electrical generation on site. The development also has modeled greenhouse gas emission reductions of 70% compared to a baseline Code building.
Programmatic elements for the complex include a community kitchen and gathering spaces, laundry facilities for the tenants in the building and the broader housing complex–61 units total– and meeting rooms and offices for support staff. Native landscaping and outdoor tenant amenity spaces extend the development’s intentional community-building attributes across the site.
The construction utilized a Passive House-certified prefabricated wall system called BuildSmart, which achieves an R55 effective thermal blanket around the building. The development also includes a full-building energy monitoring system, helping advance industry knowledge of how high-efficiency designs actually perform. This should prove useful in achieving our necessary low-energy, low-carbon future. The industry information sharing from the project is supported in part by Natural Resources Canada and CMHC.
