Industrialized Construction Initiative

The Industrialized Construction Initiative has launched 13 wood prefabrication projects designed to foster faster, greener and regionally focused construction.

Industrialized Construction Initiative

Dates

2017-2020

Type of project

Research Program

Status

Completed

Financial Partners

Context and Goals

Prefabricated construction is emerging as a practical solution to the challenges of productivity, quality, and labour shortages facing the construction industry.
Launched in the summer of 2018 by the Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics at Université Laval, the Industrialized Construction Initiative (ICI) was created to promote the adoption of this approach.

Its goals were to:

  • Expand knowledge in this field;

  • Develop innovative tools and technological solutions to support the industrialized construction of multi-story buildings;

  • Facilitate market access within a 1,000 km radius;

  • Demonstrate the overall performance of this method, particularly in terms of energy efficiency and environmental impact.

Partners

               

            

Results

The involvement of partners made it possible to complete numerous graduate-level research projects, contributing to the advancement of scientific knowledge in wood prefabricated construction.

The ICI research program notably resulted in:

  • 13 master’s and doctoral projects completed;

  • Several scientific publications and professional articles;

  • The training of a new generation of highly qualified researchers in industrialized construction;

  • The development of concrete solutions to accelerate the adoption of prefabrication in Quebec.

Development of a Universal Connector

Laurence Picard, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering at Université Laval, imagined, designed, and patented the LOC connection system, a line of universal connectors for use in prefabricated construction. This innovative system, developed under the supervision of professors André Bégin-Drolet (Department of Mechanical Engineering) and Pierre Blanchet (Department of Wood and Forest Sciences), is designed to significantly simplify module assembly through an automatic connection mechanism. The development of this invention is part of the Industrialized Construction Initiative research program.