Re-imagining Housing Design for the 21st Century: Canada’s Housing Design Catalogue
Veles Construction
What is the Catalogue?
The Housing Design Catalogue is a federal initiative by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada to provide ready-to-use, standardised architectural/engineering design packages for housing typologies such as accessory dwelling units (ADUs), rowhouses, four-plexes, six-plexes and other infill/missing-middle forms across Canada. The goal: reduce soft-costs, simplify approvals, speed up construction, promote gentle density and sustainable design.
Key features:
The catalogue includes 50 standardised housing designs covering multiple regions.
Designs include architectural and engineering drawings (PDF, CAD, BIM), energy-reporting templates, building performance reports, cost-estimate summaries, climate-resiliency guidance, and user guides.
Designs are region-tailored: different building codes, climate zones, lot sizes, construction methods and materials.
Why this matters
Affordability & supply: In the face of Canada’s housing supply gap and affordability challenge, standardizing designs can help reduce time, cost and permit delays.
Gentle density / infill: Rather than only focusing on large greenfield sites or high-rise towers, the catalogue prioritises typologies like ADUs, four-plexes and six-plexes that can fit into existing neighbourhoods.
Sustainability & accessibility: Many stakeholders emphasised that the designs should embed high performance (energy efficiency, climate resilience), universal design/accessibility, and innovative construction methods.
Innovation in construction methods: The catalogue also aims to support modular/prefabricated/3D-printed housing methods as part of the broader industrial strategy for home building.
What People Are Saying – Reviews & Feedback
Positive reactions
Analysts view the catalogue as a “good first step” in streamlining housing approvals and enabling small-volume builders. For instance, one comment: “Rather than viewing this catalogue as an endpoint, we see it as a foundation, an opportunity to demonstrate that building better does not need to mean building slower or more expensively.”
Architects highlight the strength of providing regionally-adapted, ready-to-go design packages: “I find the design really very compelling in a kind of understated way … By making available vetted plans that can be either pre-approved or approved as-of-right, CMHC will remove some of the friction that impedes this scale of housing.”
Cautions and critiques
Some housing & policy researchers caution that while helpful, the catalogue alone won’t solve affordability or supply problems. For example: “It’s a small piece and a positive one … but [it’s] one that probably captures a disproportionate amount of attention …”
On the performance front: Although the catalogue sets a baseline of energy efficiency, some experts view the targets as modest by current high-performance standards (e.g., compared to Passive House). For example: “Passive House Canada CEO …: ‘Could have gone further by setting clear, measurable performance targets for energy efficiency.’”
Municipal implementation remains a wildcard: The standard designs are only as useful as the local planning and building approval systems allow them to be. Many sites/municipalities have varying lot sizes, zoning overlays, and local resistance (NIMBYism) that could slow uptake.
Why This Matters to You / to Sustainable Construction
Given your interest in sustainable construction and retrofit innovation (and your work exploring energy efficiency, community engagement, etc.), this initiative offers several interesting intersections:
Material & construction innovation: The catalogue opens doors for more standardised, higher-efficiency housing. This could link to materials research (e.g., low embodied carbon materials) and systemised construction methods (prefab, modular) you follow.
Policy + adoption framework: The success of the catalogue doesn’t just depend on design it depends on regulatory/permitting frameworks, municipal uptake, and builder capacity. That’s relevant to your interest in retrofit programmes and scaling innovation.
Affordability-sustainability nexus: The catalogue model bridges supply acceleration with sustainability (accessibility, climate resilience). It invites questions such as: How might similar standardised design tools support your retrofit/upgrade world? Could a “catalogue” of retrofit-ready upgrade packages (e.g., high-efficiency envelopes, heat pumps) be a parallel or follow-up?
Global transferability: While Canada-focused, the idea of standardised, region-adapted design kits has relevance beyond Canada. Lessons could inform your research or future advocacy (e.g., for India, if your envisioned sustainable material inventory leads to standardised design templates).
Key Questions & What to Watch
Adoption rate: How many builders, municipalities and developers will actually pick up the catalogue designs, adapt them and build them? Implementation will be the real metric of success.
Performance verification: Will actual builds using these designs meet the promised cost, schedule, energy performance, and sustainability metrics? Monitoring will matter.
Flexibility vs standardisation: Standardised designs help with cost/time, but if too rigid they might not respond to site-specific needs, local culture/aesthetics, or evolving climate/resilience demands. Stakeholders have flagged this tension.
Scale & affordability: The catalogue is targeted at a particular segment (infill/missing middle). Will it meaningfully shift the supply curve for deeply affordable housing (sub-$1,000/month rents) or solve heavy housing-shortage contexts? Possibly not on its own.
Integration with retrofit & sustainability agenda: For builders and policy professionals (like you), how might these standardised new-build kits connect or align with upgrading existing stock (retrofit) to avoid increasing the divide between new sustainable housing and existing inefficient housing?
In summary, Canada’s Housing Design Catalogue is a thoughtful and ambitious tool in the housing-innovation toolkit. It emphasises toolbox-style solutions: ready-made designs, tailored regionally, pushing for infill, sustainability, and accessibility. It’s not the only lever, but it signals a shift: that the state and industry are willing to supply not just policy or funding, but concrete design resources and standardisation.
For practitioners and researchers in sustainable construction, it offers a blueprint (literally) of how design, regulation, construction, performance, and policy may converge. For the moment, the catalogue is best viewed as a foundation or enabler, rather than a silver-bullet solution. The real story will unfold in uptake, real construction, and measurable outcomes.
Reference:
Canada, I. (2025, May 28). Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada - Housing Design Catalogue: What we Heard Report Summer 2024.
Daily Commercial News. (2025, November 5). Canada Housing Design Catalogue gains recognition as a good first step.
