PREFAB STARTS HERE
The spaces where we live and work should inspire all to live better and connect more deeply to each
other and to our environment. They should reflect our story. For Holz, it starts with the forest.
Image courtesy of Sean Kohli
Image courtesy of Kristen Sawatzky
Our owner and founder spent summer breaks framing and building homes for his older brother.
After 2 years at the University of Winnipeg playing volleyball, Ted started his own framing company, a diverse & playful crew that spent hours debating the latest song lyrics, energized by the first warm days of spring after a long and cold Winnipeg winter, travelling anywhere the work was, prefabbing and innovating when PREFAB was still a negative term.
This innovative spirit is deeply imbedded in our team culture at Holz. We are often alone in our quest to forge a new and better way. The local universities and colleges are our partners as we mentor & hire the best engineering and architecture students, who help test our ideas. We never settle for status quo.
Photo courtesy of James Brittain
WE BUILD
We do much more than prefab wood wall panels. We build big buildings and little ones. We build walls complete with cladding factory installed with gasket connections, floor and roof panels, bathroom and kitchen PODS.
HOLZ definition: Wood (in German), earth’s best building material (that’s our interpretation).
PREFAB THE HOLZ WAY
It’s an environmentally conscious choice we made to prioritize building with wood. Its sustainable, strong, prefab’s well and beautiful. From harvest, to construction and eventual return to the earth, there is no building material like it.
We toured European factories to help us refine our own system of prefab.
Good architecture is important to us. We want to be able to support the best designers in the world with prefab. Part of the reason we flat pack is that it allows for creativity in shipping, while being efficient in maximizing our transport loads.
Nail Laminated Timber is a simple Mass Timber technique that doesn’t use glue, and works off simple spans. Simple spans also make for good design. They keep floors slim and provide a beautiful aesthetic. Bathroom and kitchens are complicated and consume a lot of resources. We ship those as PODS. Small and efficient packaging.
While we prefer wood, we also use steel studs when it makes sense for the project.
Image courtesy of James Brittain
THIS GLASS WALL WAS PREFABBED IN OUR SHOP
We coordinated with one of the best window suppliers in Canada to build this wall. Trailblazers like us. They sent us frames, panes of glass and the knowledge and support to install their product into walls that we craned into place on site.
Believing in communities.
Image courtesy of Merlin Braun
Image courtesy of Merlin Braun
Image courtesy of Merlin Braun
Image courtesy of Merlin Braun
We’ve partnered with Winnipeg Trails providing tree stakes for their tree planting initiatives as trees are at the center of what we do. We also support local winter programming, and the construction of schools in Haiti. One of our ongoing projects is sponsoring awards for middle school students who struggle with the challenges of life. We believe a strong community is at the center of everything we do.
The HUGMUG was the idea of the Art Class at the high school Ted attended. Ted helped the class build it, and it became one of the leading attractions at The Forks Winter Warming Hut Competition. Our time supporting different communities has greatly enriched our team’s ability to work alongside each other. The backstories, experiences, and memories we’ve accumulated in our work outside of building, makes us a stronger team —a truth we hope filters through and shows itself in how we connect with you.
The foundation of our process is this: we care for earth’s resources and use them carefully. The world committed to that in the Paris Accord of 2015, and we want to build your dwelling with that in mind.