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*Winner - Best Tech Podcast - 2025 Quill Podcast Awards*
British Columbia is experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis. While addressing various aspects of the housing supply chain is essential, no single approach can fully solve the challenges we face in scaling housing production. So, what's the blueprint for growth?
In November 2023, DIGITAL — Canada's Global Innovation Cluster for digital technologies — launched its Housing Growth Innovation Program with support from the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs. The program brings together collaborative teams of industry leaders to accelerate technology-driven approaches that are driving real, tangible growth for British Columbia's housing production sector.
Amy Vilis, Director of Housing Growth Innovation at DIGITAL, chats with innovators doing groundbreaking work within DIGITAL's Housing Growth Innovation Program to develop and implement technology-based solutions within British Columbia's housing sector across the full scale of end-to-end production. These conversations showcase how ideas are making it into the real world where they can become comprehensive, viable and, best of all, achievable solutions to accelerate housing production for British Columbians.
Amy Villis (00:02.19)
I spend a lot of time talking about innovation, but the real question is how we actually make it work on the ground. technology and helps us issues, instruction industry that we're facing today. Welcome to Blueprint for Growth Innovation and Housing. I'm Amy Villis, Director of Housing Growth Innovation at Digital, Canada's global innovation cluster for digital technologies. In this episode, we'll dive into where housing innovation meets real world delivery and how Canada's future depends on pragmatic innovation and systemic change. Joining me are two incredible leaders who are doing just that. I'll be joined by Beau Jarvis, President and CEO of West Group Properties, who makes the case for evolving traditional construction with digital bolt-ons, modular techniques, and real policy reform. I'll also be joined by Kathy Hogeveen, COO of Assembly Corp, showing how coordinated design manufacturing and supply chain digitization can unlock new levels of quality, speed and affordability. Both bring a clear message. Progress isn't about old versus new, it's about alignment.
When government, industry and communities come together around shared digital standards, breaking down regulatory barriers and focus on practical collaboration, innovation stops being a buzzword and starts being how we actually get housing built. My first guest is Beau Jarvis. As I mentioned, he's the president and CEO of West Group Properties, one of Western Canada's largest privately held real estate development companies. Based in Vancouver, West Group builds across all asset classes. Residential, industrial, office and retail and plays a major role in shaping how housing gets built in this region. Welcome, Bo. So, West Group's known as a vertically integrated traditional builder. You've got deep roots in how housing actually gets delivered. With so much buzz right now around modular offsite manufacturing, how do you see traditional construction evolving?
Beau Jarvis
We are traditional in the sense that, you know, we still build buildings the way that we have been building buildings for a thousand years or whatever it is. And that is with manual labor and things like that. And obviously there is a lot of criticism, a lot of discussion around how traditional our industry is and that it perhaps has not advanced or innovated as much as many other industries. And I believe that there's actually some truth in that. With this said, there's a big push right now, using words like prefabrication, modular, offsite construction, and things like that. We prefabricate walls offsite and drive them to our sites, install the walls, and things like that. We've been doing that for a very long time. So this sort of concept of offsite construction and prefabrication isn't like new or innovative, but it's being talked about within the context of really like wanting to amplify it.
It's good. We should be doing that. It's just hard to do that. Harder than most think for many, many reasons, policy reasons, building code reasons, urban design reasons, and all these different constraints. Where we believe traditional construction is going to make gains in terms of cost savings, efficiencies, time savings, is really bolting on technologies around traditional construction rather than reinventing traditional construction. What some of that is, an example, there's a robot company called Dusty Robotics. And Dusty Robotics is a layout robot. It basically uses a 3D model, which we are building, and many people like ourselves are building, and that is an innovative sort of bolt-on technology. It's building all of our buildings, drawings in three-dimensional, and then we feed that model into something like a Dusty Robotics that actually on the floor plate lays out where all the walls are, where all the pipes are. And I think the stat is on a 17,000 square foot floor plate that used to take, you know, just over a week with two humans. And that takes a day with this robot. So the future is to involve a lot more people getting a lot more collaborative I believe is going.
Clip
Hey we got this new robot that comes out and draws all the plants. said alright let's do it. And then when I actually saw it happen I was pretty impressed.
And so if you think about the knock-on effect of that everything moves way way quicker
Beau Jarvis (04:36.174)
We're honored to work alongside you guys and create an opportunity. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about Steelworks, the use of digital twin and 3D modeling when you're going to the fabrication process and give some details about how that is looking to speed up and expedite on-site construction.
So Steelworks is something that we're pretty excited about in terms of helping to, again, it's a bolt-on, right? It's a bolt-on to traditional construction. It's a mix of offsite prefabrication and a mix of using our digital twin or the 3D models that we're building as the input to the system to produce steel studs effectively and have them cut accurately based on the 3D model.
Holes punched in the studs for wiring, et cetera, all based on the 3D model that has all the layers of disciplines of drawings in it. So electrical, mechanical, architectural, structural, et cetera, building envelope. And so that model goes into the system. We obviously, with the help of digital, acquired a steel, a cold-formed steel machine. That cold-formed steel machine takes rolls of steel and bends it into these prefabricated studs that are measured perfectly, they get loaded onto a truck and sent to our site. And rather than cutting on site and measuring and doing all of that process on site, we are now eliminating that. These studs are arriving and they are perfectly matching the 3D model that we've built and can be installed immediately. And then, you know, as we move through this process, that will evolve to, you know, a wall that maybe includes drywall or the electrical wiring in it. And then that wall gets delivered to site. So we intend on evolving what Steelworks is. And I believe that we also have ambitions to perhaps look at doing some structural steel in the future with Steelworks. But right now we are producing our links of steel and they're being delivered to site based on a 3D model. And it's actually really cool. that and it's funny, right? Because as I'm saying this to you, none of this sounds really innovative.
Amy Villis (06:43.534)
Right? You know, we've actually been building out 3D models for buildings for quite a while. Now the models are becoming more robust, more accurate, and we're using them for more applications. And so, and for those of anybody who's listening to this podcast, that is quite innovative for construction.
Beau Jarvis
So with those sort of digital tools in mind, like 3D modeling, Clash Detection is a huge one, a massive, massive one. mentioned robotics, and then we just spoke about automated fabrication. Maybe if you can tell me a little bit more about the value of these Clash Detection, BIM integrated models that can detect those conflicts because of how many vendors, how many service providers are involved.
So traditionally, we have multiple disciplines in terms of drawings. You have architectural, you have building envelope, you have mechanical, you have electrical, there's landscape, there's structural. And all of these drawings, typically an architect is referred to as the coordinating consultant. And the architect will have traditionally again, and it's not as much like this anymore, but it wasn't that long ago that it was like this, where they had every set of drawings, big set of drawings out on a big table and they turn the sheet on the architectural drawing and they turn the sheet on the mechanical drawing and over here on the electrical drawing and they try and understand where there was going to be clashes when we're building the building and what a clash is. maybe a water pipe conflicts with an electrical wire or a drainage pipe. And so they try and think about it in 3D as opposed to have it in 3D. And as artificial intelligence is starting to come into play with this, it's making it even more rapid in terms of clash detection.
Amy Villis (08:34.318)
Okay, so all these sort of digital tools, the bolt-ons, all of these things that you go, where do you think that our biggest, I hate talking about struggles or conflicts, where do you think they lie? Where are the problem spaces to be solved for, do you think, in the current state?
Beau Jarvis
But in my mind it's policy. Our industry is advocating for a moratorium on policy effectively.
But a couple of questions to dig into the idea of if Canada could invest in a digital technology or innovation to truly accelerate housing production, what would it be for you and why does it stand out?
I do believe that there is a way to make modular work. And I do believe that that would be more efficient and hopefully cost effective. We're not laying the groundwork for a policy environment that would facilitate that, as we've discussed. I honestly think the most innovative thing to enable our industry or our sector is to reduce the layers of policy and find policy continuity between different levels of government. Like, how simple is that? Right? It's not innovative. It's not intellectual property. It's just having governments talk to one another.
Amy Villis (09:55.758)
So that's exactly where I think digital innovation can be the game changer. Digitizing all the rules associated with policy and land use. All level governments are working on it. The private sector has been as well. But when you think about leveraging an AI powered multi-context platform, we could build an interconnected digital ecosystem for those regulations. We can start linking the data and the frameworks across all levels of government, eliminating the silos and can you imagine reducing redundant and conflicting policies? And then the coolest part for me is when new regulations are actually crafted, they are done within a data-driven digital environment so they can be grounded in actual measurable housing outcomes than rather some historical precedent or political compromise. I love that digital technologies are actually our best kick at the can creating a regulatory system that's nimble and transparent. I just love it.
Beau Jarvis
We've seen some beta testing of some companies that are working to produce drawings using artificial intelligence. And we met with a company that was doing electrical drawings. That's what they were starting with. And they did a demo for us and, you know, they could get to IFC drawings in like two days. Whereas today that would take us, you know, almost a year. And of course you have to have all the disciplines of drawings going at the same pace. And so you can't discount that. When we look to the future. And that is, you that's a big, big change, a big innovation. And I welcome that.
Amy Villis (11:26.318)
So in BC, you represent one of the big, you know, tier one developer construction folks, but what about the 24,000 in BC that are the small guys that sit under, you know, 10 individuals building a lion's share of what gets built in our province?
Where do you see their efficiencies coming from? Because they're not running out with BIM files and getting CAD and having those licenses. So where do you think some of the efficiencies, whether it's an innovative process or not, might come from?
Beau Jarvis
I think all builders, any size are going to benefit from these emerging, call it technologies. I think that PD modeling, you know, I don't think that it's more cost prohibitive than traditional forms of just designing in an AutoCAD two dimensional layer of drawings. So I don't, I think that they're, that the smaller builders are going to be able to benefit from the same things that we're benefiting from. don't, I don't think that there's going to be a big disparity there. And I could be wrong, but that's kind of my belief. We're going to get to a place where you're going to go hire an architect, whether you're building a laneway house or a big massive building, and it's just going to be in 3D. And I think that's going to be coming pretty quick. You know, at West Group, we have an in-house department where we're creating our own 3D drawings. Like, we're the ones that are doing it based off of the architectural drawing. But that's starting to change where the architects are and the other various disciplines are working in 3D models.
Amy Vilis
I mean, it would be sweet if you didn't have to flatten those 3D models to submit to the city for permitting. would be great if you weren't submitting a PDF, you're able to get to a place. And I mean, that's part of this narrative around like, how can we get the industry ready for that step? Are you ready for that step? How do you get the city ready for that step and need the things in there? I got one last question. It's just about call to action. I, you know, I have a single suspicion I might know what it is but fly at it. A call to action for those that are listening, whether it's government, community, industry, who want a champion change, where would you direct them to do so?
Beau Jarvis (13:24.856)
Number one, we've overly politicized real estate development and housing in particular. And perhaps that was necessary because we do have a cost of delivery crisis, not only in our province, but across the country. And I would say that we try and find pragmatic approaches that are unpoliticized to how we're going to be delivering housing in our country. And we really, really, we have to do that.
The other thing is as a society, as it relates to the delivery of housing and new construction, we have to stop letting perfection be the enemy of good. We really, and I'm going to say that again, we have to stop letting perfection be the enemy of good because we can't have it all. We can't have, you know, we can't solve for climate. We can't solve for social justice. We can't solve for all these different initiatives or emergencies on the back of delivering housing.
Amy Villis (14:41.966)
While Beau and his team are evolving traditional construction with new technologies, our next guest is tackling the same challenge through a different approach. One focused on integrating design, manufacturing and supply chains from the start. Cathy Hogeveen is the Chief Operating Officer at Assembly Corp in Toronto, with over 40 years of experience across construction, real estate and technology. She started her career in IT, so she's seen firsthand how construction has been one of the last industries to truly automate.
Now at Assembly, she's helping lead that shift, driving innovation through a fully integrated off-site manufacturing platform, rethinking how buildings come together. When we talk about off-site, when we talk about repeatable, scalable kind of production and off-site manufacturing, where do you see the efficiencies and the ability to kind of get that quality and speed?
Having repeatable assemblies, mean a wall is a wall. So every single builder has been building walls. So once we have that as a repeatable assembly that's manufactured, that means your design process changes, your structural elements are already defined in a model. And therefore the design timeline shortens, which of course increases the efficiency for speed and money, as well as the quality, right? You've got the precision of things that are coming from a factory.
So then the on-site installation dramatically improves as well. So this is two-fold piece and the digital piece is key to that.
Your work with architects and engineers, how has that shifted using design for manufacturing and assembly?
Kathy Hogeveen (16:21.332)
It's threefold. Actually, it's getting the consultants involved upfront with manufacturers. So having the person, we've been working with a fabrication company for the last three years, having them in the room as we are designing the particular project. So they've got the manufacturing constraints as well as our construction people. So they have the assembly constraints. So if you've got all of that informing upfront, you're building a model that is actually can be manufactured and can be constructed efficiently.
And so it's key to have the &A with the D. And just for the sake of argument here, the difference of how that would be in an on-site traditional build? How would you normally engage with those folks and at what point? The entire timeline has changes, right? So originally it starts with an architect, they come up with the design, then they go out and hand it off. It's this whole handoff process that the industry traditionally uses, where you go then to the structural engineer, and then you go to mechanical engineer, and then each person adds their layer of detail. So you end up with these levels of detail within a set of drawings, and now from a perspective in a model. So you'll be able to do that collaboratively.
So instead of this taking, for example, 12 weeks, you can now shorten that down to like four weeks if you're all in the same room having informed conversations about how each one affects each other. So they're able to, and digitally, they're able to operate on the same model, same pack.
Amy Villis (17:46.734)
Let's talk about BIM, where that's resonating right now in the sector and how you're applying it at Assembly Corp.
Kathy Hogeveen
Yeah, I mean, I've been a big proponent from the beginning because I came from that side of it. That is, I mean, every decision we make should be data-based. So watching the industry adopt, I think has been challenging, to the least. The adoption is not where it should be. So I actually think this is a huge opportunity for us to move towards standardization. There's, mean, UK went to ISO 19650 for everybody that wants to participate in a government project.
So I think there's a real opportunity there. think where we're at right now, there's a real initiative to adopt. The standardization of elements and components and families and how different consulting firms will share data is a real challenge. So creating a common data environment amongst the consultants is the only way we're actually going to get full buy-in and for adoption throughout the industry. So it's not just going to be, you know, the most tech savvy.
architects and engineers are there, but we need everybody there if we're going to make a difference.
Amy Villis (19:02.038)
In BC, we have 24,000 small construction companies and their big issue with BIM is the cost. It's a rate limiter to have a Revit or AutoCAD. So where do you think the role of the government has on the standardization or the implementation of the use of BIM?
Kathy Hogeveen
I think 277 in Canada, if you're able to allow the smaller shops or the smaller GCs to be able to just be able to treat it like they were buying toilets, for example, or any other item that they're buying for their particular buildings. So if the walls and floors and different assemblies become more productized, then they'll be able to incorporate them in their current drawing platforms, however they're doing it. Have a platform where you can upload all of your BIM work.
So if they've already got all their details, the specifications, and their modeling done, they can upload it there and we can share it amongst each other. We've spoken about this before around applying a digital platform across the end to end as far as your manufacturing process. Do you mind unpacking that a little bit about how you see your, you know, North Star future?
There's a lot of tools out there that are starting to work with picking a space because everybody has their own zoning bylaws and all the different regulatory bodies that we need to deal with. But if you look at a piece of land and then you're trying to adopt a building to that piece of land, you know all the elements, all the components of that building are ready within your modeling tool. You're able to site fit for the client. You're able to give them a quick idea of costs and schedule. If you have all that data attached to the model,
Kathy Hogeveen (20:38.86)
And my goal obviously is for that model to be Revit based so that it goes right from site adaptation, initial test fits with the client, right through generating a fully set of drawings, IFC. If you think about traditionally you have to go through all of those levels of detail to get to there, I think that could be done very quickly through digital tools. We end up with our permit set.
That permit sent then leads, once it's been approved, leads right to shop drawings, to the manufacturing side of things, but also adding other data along the way, it can lead to the digital twin. And so we can give our clients an operating model, right? So they're able to get, instead of as-built and closed out documents being what they have been in the past, that should be digital. And they should be able to operate and know exactly what their maintenance costs are. If we can tell them that upfront, right, then be able to give it to them in a digital tool, then our clients will be able to move through the entire process quicker.
And one of the other big pieces about the use of any digital platform for me is supply chain. So talking about pipeline, talking about supply chain, we work in a sphere that it's like feast or famine sometimes. So how are you approaching the supply chain? Specifically, we can think about Canadian-based products as well in there.
getting integrated dashboards throughout the system so people can understand the logistics of building a building. Right? So there's so many people involved in that supply chain, right? From, as I said, bathrooms, kitchens, pipe, mechanical, electrical, all of the trades are working towards kit apart mindsets. So if all of those kits aparts can then be put onto a warehouse, a digital platform. And then we're able to say, all right, here we could do bulk buying, we can do ordering. I mean, everything can shift towards kind of what the automotive industry does, but still applying it for our buildings.
Amy Villis
So the big one that sometimes is a dirty word, procurement. So how do think we need to shift to sort of prepare the offsite manufacturers for a better procurement process? Because unlike the traditional builders, you're having to front load the investment costs of the builds and the products to get your warehouse stocked with your panels or your trusses. So what are your thoughts around that sometimes a dirty word, procurement?
Kathy Hogeveen
So that's the client side of making sure they have the money to be able to pay us to be able to manufacture. Government also needs to offer us that leverage to be able to say, here you go, we're going to go ahead and backstop you to be able to invest in manufacturing, to be able to invest in just even the supplies, right, to get up and running. So I think there's an opportunity there. And then I would add to that, if the Build Canada Homes program is going to release some of the federal lands and be able to do bulk purchasing, that's a great way to give us a insured pipeline so we can actually take the effort to be able to get our plant up and running and to be able to grow self-performing. So all the things that we need to do to get the houses that the government wants to be able to put people into, then they need to be able to backstop it for us.
Amy Villis
I agree. And thank you for bringing that up. I think that we knew out of the gate, Volumetric was a piece. It was a big play. It still is. know, I hats off to Volumetric people for getting the needle moving. But you're right, the flexibility of a panelized system and the flexibility of, you know, not having to build the whole meal deal, you know, you get your components and that. So regionally, what are your thoughts on Canada and how it sits against what we often compare to Europe or Japan as far as producing homes, how would we take a Canadian approach?
Kathy Hogeveen
Yeah, we need some national guidelines. And that's why think the CSA and ISO approaches have opportunities to give national impact to grow nationally.
Amy Villis
So on the regulatory side, what are your thoughts about where some improvements can come from our local governments as well as, you know, our provincial or federal building code standards?
Kathy Hogeveen
I think the alignment that has to happen from a local all the way to federal is vital. Like we've just got to remove so many levels of red tape. Right? And so again, maybe to something like a CSA 277, where you're saying, here is the standard across Canada. And then once we have that, then that allows us to not have to go through all of checks held accountable to it. So it creates accountability, it creates the quality, it creates the efficiency. And then the local building codes need to adjust, right? All the way through to the provincial and federal. We just need alignment.
Amy Villis (25:29.27)
If Canada could invest in one digital technology to truly accelerate housing delivery, what would it be and why does that stand out for you?
Kathy Hogeveen
So I would say the BIM ISO-19650 is an opportunity for standardization because Revit is the most adopted platform within our space. And so that allows for a full leveling of the field for everybody to be able to have to perform to the same digital standards and then be able to collaborate and grow. Like that's only way we're actually going to make real headway, as if we're all collaborating and sharing information.
One call to action for industry and government leaders is collaboration on the digital standards, right? And the workforce training that has to happen for advanced manufacturing to incentivize the offsite industry is the only way we're going to help move the needle and get the regulatory bodies to move as well. I'd say the biggest challenge is securing pipelines so that investors will invest in the advanced manufacturing offsite market and then providing clients with the financing they need to be able to move their projects forward.
Amy Villis
Mic drop. Bam.
Thanks so much to Beau and Kathy for sharing their insights and experiences on what real innovation means in Canadian housing. Today's conversation shows how evolving tradition and advancing manufacturing can work together to drive the kind of systemic change our communities need now. Up next, we'll look at how cities and tech innovators are bringing housing delivery into the digital age, from digital permitting to AI-driven approvals and smarter data sharing. It's all about collaboration, shared standards, and turning innovation into real impact.
This podcast is powered by Digital's Housing Growth Innovation Program with support from the Province of British Columbia and the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs.