‘Ottawa’ History Museum Architect Has Designed Better Northern Home
Construction techniques employed at the Canadian Museum of History could help replace shoddy, mould-ridden homes in northern indigenous communities with durable, healthy residences.
Douglas Cardinal, the renowned Ottawa architect who designed the history museum, has designed a prefab three-bedroom loft-style house using cross laminated timber, made by gluing two-by-fours together at 90-degree angles.
The result, Cardinal says, is a solid slab of wood that’s as strong as concrete, more fire-resistant than steel and far more energy efficient than houses made with traditional stick-frame construction.
A key aspect of the design is that the insulation and vapour barrier are on the outside of the house – not inside the building, packed between studs behind dry wall, as in most houses.
Traditional stick-frame construction is ill-suited to the north, Cardinal said in an interview. “The housing is terrible. It’s not designed around the people’s needs or culture.”