Collège Boréal to build a tiny home prototype for northern Ontario

A new three-year project from Collège Boréal in Sudbury, Ont., will look at how tiny homes can be built and adapted for northern Ontario.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) provided the college with a grant of $120,000 per year to pursue the project.

Sabine Bouchard, the manager of research and innovation at Collège Boréal, said the school has just started the planning phase, where students will work together with partners to design one tiny home that can withstand northern Ontario's climate.

The second year will focus on fabrication, where students will build the home. And the third year, and final phase, will concentrate on testing and evaluating their prototypes.

"We're hoping to host a conference that will really help educate the public on tiny homes and the opportunity for that type of housing within the city of Sudbury," Bouchard said.

Meeting the city's housing needs

If all goes as planned, the school will have a successful prototype that can be produced in larger numbers and help meet the city's housing needs.

Bouchard said the NSERC grant will pay for research, building materials and will provide some funds to pay students and staff working on the tiny home.

The multi-disciplinary project will involve students from a variety of backgrounds such as carpentry and plumbing.

Collège Boréal is also teaming up with an organization called the Tiny Town Association for the project.

Ed Peterson, the Tiny Town Association's founder and operations director, said the association's goal is to build communities where tiny homes could be a feasible reality.

The association is based in Kingston and is working to build its first tiny home community in southern Ontario.

But Peterson said his organization will work closely with Collège Boréal, and will travel to Sudbury a few times each year to collaborate on the tiny home prototype.

"What we're hoping to do with the partnership at [Collège Boréal] is to work on looking at different tiny home designs that take into account both the affordability of the construction as well as how the home will operate in conditions in the north," Peterson said.

Habitat for Humanity

On a similar note, Habitat for Humanity Ontario Gateway North, which covers Parry Sound, Sudbury and the Nipissing and Cochrane districts plans to make a shift to modular homes.

Michael Cullen, the organization's director of community partnerships, said it hopes to build a modular home factory in Sudbury, that could eventually ramp up production to hundreds of homes in a year.

Cullen said the project would also create new jobs in the community.

He said Habitat for Humanity is in early conversations with architecture firms, builders and community organizations to get the project started.

The pivot represents a big change from building just a few homes a year with the help of volunteers.

But Cullen said the organization's board fully supports moving to modular homes and making a bigger impact that way.