The challenge with this project was to create a positive ambience within the code and specifications necessary for a social service facility placed in an industrial location.

NRB's custom steel framed complex combines administration space with residential quarters for the homeless. Features include a large Multi-Purpose Room with a 14'-high vaulted ceiling and clerestorey windows to bathe the room in natural daylight; full bathroom and shower facilities; laundry, kitchen, resource rooms and counselling offices.

Each of the 25 modules were engineered and built with structural steel "post and beam" construction, with concrete floors pre-poured at our NRB plant. The building's external appearance and finish were intended to integrate with its surroundings in an industrial park. Cost-saving building innovations included the use of three-dimensional modules for all but the Multi-Purpose Room. This area was instead surrounded by partitions from adjacent modules, with pre-poured concrete floor panels placed on the foundations, and the upper vault structure prefabricated with vertical knee-walls and roof, which was then installed over the open area.

This structure was a complete turnkey package performed by NRB Inc., including foundation, HVAC, plumbing, paving and final service connections. All features and finishes were installed at the manufacturing plant so site time was kept to a minimum.