New standard: Ottawa releases Canada-wide housing designs

Key Takeaways:

• The catalogue features standardized designs for rowhouses, fourplexes, sixplexes, and accessory dwelling units to accelerate construction and reduce costs, particularly benefiting smaller homebuilders.

• Architectural firms across Canada contributed region-specific designs, ensuring the catalogue addresses diverse construction methods, materials, and local building codes, while also prioritizing accessibility, energy efficiency, and financial feasibility.

• The catalogue aims to simplify the path from concept to construction by providing ready-to-use architectural and engineering plans, technical guidance, and cost estimates, helping builders deliver housing more efficiently.

The Whole Story:

New standardized designs for housing across Canada have arrived.

The federal government released the final renderings, floor plan layouts, and key building details as part of the Housing Design Catalogue, an initiative under Canada’s Housing Plan. The catalogue features some 50 standardized housing designs for rowhouses, fourplexes, sixplexes, and accessory dwelling units across the country.

“These standardized designs will help smaller homebuilders cut through the complexity, speeding up the time between concept and construction and lowering costs of building,” said Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities.

Firms chosen to develop designs for the catalogue include MGA | Michael Green Architecture for the British Columbia region. LGA Architectural Partners Ltd. worked with five other teams of regional experts: Dub Architects (Alberta), 5468796 Architecture (Manitoba and Saskatchewan), KANVA (Quebec), Abbott Brown Architects (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), and Taylor Architecture Group (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut). LGA itself covered the region of Ontario.

Officials stated the announcement provides a head start for homeowners, builders, and communities in their planning processes. The regional architecture and engineering teams were instructed to focus on creating gentle density and infill development in existing neighbourhoods in all regions of the country. The final architectural design packages will be released this spring.

To help ensure the Housing Design Catalogue supports the goals of Canada’s housing system, numerous principles were considered during the development phase. These principles include adaptability and accessibility, energy efficiency, financial feasibility, use of regional construction methods and materials, and compliance with local regulations and building codes.

Once the final architectural design packages are ready, the Housing Design Catalogue will help builders streamline the process from concept to construction, cutting costs and speeding up housing delivery. The catalogue simplifies design, ensures compliance with building codes, and helps estimate costs—so homes can be built faster.

The designs cover all regions of the country: British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic provinces (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), and the territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut).

The final architectural design packages will consist of architectural and engineering drawings and specifications, including accessible-ready and enhanced-accessible layouts; technical guidance on topics such as site considerations and energy modeling;  and, construction cost summaries for each housing design in regions across the country.

The federal government is drawing inspiration from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)’s post-war housing design catalogues developed between the 1940s and 1970s. 

Here are renderings of some of the new designs: