Hamilton Passive House Modular Housing

This article first appeared in ARCHITECT's October 2022 issue as part of the magazine's 'Housing Innovators' coverage.

There’s a saying among members of Toronto-based architecture firm Montgomery Sisam Architects: “The building has to last a hundred years,” intones Enda McDonagh, one of the practice’s nine principals. That ethos permeates the firm’s plans for a modular, affordable housing project in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, set on Lake Ontario.

Commissioned by CityHousing Hamilton, a local affordable housing provider, to shelter those experiencing homelessness, the forthcoming residence—which is designed to achieve Passive House Certification—will consist of 24 studio apartments. The building’s modular construction ensures the project will be “delivered on a rapid timeline,” McDonagh says, while its incorporation of sustainable design principles speaks to the longevity goals of both CityHousing Hamilton and the firm. “The client is very forward-thinking and has quite a few Passive House projects under their belt,” says McDonagh, a certified Passive House consultant. “Passive House is relatively new for us, so we wanted to get involved.”

Despite the building’s novel approach, McDonagh says the Montgomery Sisam team felt rooted in “familiar territory” throughout the design process. With a background in both municipality-driven housing projects and net-zero energy builds, the firm was well-equipped to base its scheme around all-electric heating and cooling systems, an insulation-heavy exterior, triple-glazed windows and doors, and an array of photovoltaic panels on the south-facing roof.

Designing the interior of the 18,000-square-foot building—which will replace a parking lot set between a church and another multifamily residence—was a different challenge. There, McDonagh and his colleagues crafted inviting units and common spaces with “all the home-like qualities and features that we take for granted,” he says. The goal, the architectural technician adds, was to ensure that “somebody walking into the space isn’t thinking ‘institutional.’ They’re thinking ‘home.’” That meant specifying durable yet eye-catching materials such as warm Douglas fir, which will line the ceiling in the building’s shared entry, and wood-look vinyl flooring in individual suites.

The team embraced a similar approach for the project’s landscape, joining forces with local firm OMC Landscape Architecture to plan a welcoming yard. Complete with a community garden and seating areas, the outdoor hangout also includes plantings such as eastern redbud trees, boxwood shrubs, and daylilies. Like the residence itself, the landscaping is poised to stand the test of time thanks to hardy, low-maintenance flora.

As McDonagh and other project contributors look forward to completing construction in 2023, he notes that the endeavor isn’t just about building something to last. “The starting block for us is that we’re creating a home for someone who either has fallen on hard times and lost their home or never had one to speak of,” he says. “We’re trying to create a place for them, an address—something that they want to come back to.”

PROJECT CREDITS
Project: Hamilton Passive House Modular Housing, Hamilton, Ontario
Client: CityHousing Hamilton
Architects: Montgomery Sisam Architects, Toronto. Enda McDonagh (principal, architectural technician, passive house consultant)
Mechanical Engineer: Design Works Engineering
Structural Engineer: Design Works Engineering
Electrical Engineer: Design Works Engineering
Civil Engineer: Ainley Group
General Contractor: NRB Modular Solutions
Landscape Architect: OMC Landscape Architecture
Size: 18,000 square feet

MATERIALS AND SOURCES
Ceilings: Armstrong Ceiling Tile
Countertops: Formica laminate finish
Flooring: Traffix Resilient Plank Flooring; Olympia Clay Series Tile Flooring
Insulation: Legalett ThermalWall PH Panel; Soprema Sopra Cellulose;
Metal: MAC Metals standing seam roof and wall cladding
Roofing: see metals
Site and Landscape Products: Maglin products for benches and bike stands
Windows and Doors: Fenstertek Passive House approved windows and doors

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Enda McDonagh was a licensed architect. This article has been updated to correctly reflect that McDonagh is an architectural technician.