When Assembly, a Toronto-based builder focused on prefabricated timber buildings, opens its factory in mid-2026, it expects to produce about 1,600 housing units a year with robotic equipment.

Known as panelized modular wood construction, the process involves assembling large wall and floor panels — or even whole room-sized modules — in a factory before transporting them to the site, where they’re quickly fitted together, reducing build times and standardizing costs.

Assembly’s housing units can be configured into mid-rise buildings, laneway suites or affordable housing. The company is one of several betting on wood and modern methods of construction to help ease Canada’s housing shortage.

Wood and modern construction methods

“The [modular construction] industry has been around for a very long time and has proven successful in countries like Sweden and Japan,” says Francesca MacKinnon, Assembly’s director of sales and marketing.

In Sweden, 84 per cent of detached houses use prefabricated timber. In Canada, modular construction accounts for 7.5 per cent of the construction market, according to the Modular Building Institute.

While modular construction is still in its infancy in Canada, the forest sector has shown to be an important part of the nation’s economy, contributing $27-billion to Canada’s GDP and directly employing nearly 200,000 people as of 2023.