SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A three-storey home designed to stand for many years was put together in less than 24 hours earlier this month.

Wayne Guy stands in front of his new multi-family residence on McDonald Drive on Aug. 14, after it was driven here from Alberta in pieces and put together in a day. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo

"We started this morning at 7 a.m. and we've got it about 85 percent done, and it's 5:30 p.m," said Wayne Guy on Aug. 13 as he took a look at the multi-family residence on McDonald Drive that was driven up in three pieces from a factory near Edmonton.

Each of the three floors is its own separate residence, and Guy, an architect, hopes to have them occupied by Sept. 1, at a price of close to $1,700 for a one-room and $1,900 for a two-room.

There will also be a terrace on the roof, offering a 270-degree view of the Old Town area where it stands – it will overlook pilots' monument, Great Slave Lake, and Latham Island.

Guy said much time and money have been saved by the approach of shipping the unit up – he noted that one of its neighbouring buildings took about two years to build. That's because "when you're doing a project, contractors up North are very busy typically in the summer season and it's sometimes hard to get a committed crew for the entire duration of the project.

Construction's teamwork, and if one trade has to go out on another project it slows everything down," he said.

He estimated the entire project cost about $650,000, so he figured he saved about $40 per square foot on the building, which hosts three units at 1,167 square feet each, and a 200-square-foot rooftop deck.

Guy also said the quality of the residence is above par because of the controlled atmosphere of a factory, and they use standardized methods to build homes.

"It's been a great process. I love that it's been up in a day," Guy said.

As well, the housing meets the new EGH-80 standard for energy efficiency, and the windows are placed to allow much of the spacious rooms to be lit by sunlight.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said although the method of shipping up residences isn't new – many double-wide trailers were brought here through that method – putting up a multi-family residence that meets the EGH-80 standard is still novel.

"(Yellowknife's) been a bring-it-up-the-highway town since probably the mid-70s," said Van Tighem.

Guy said he thinks he can put up 25 of these a year – differing in look and layout – and he suspects it may drive down the cost of housing here.

"Yellowknife has a chronic housing shortage and within three months we got three units complete," he said. "Basically we finished the plans in late April, went down and met with the factory in June to set up production and here (the units) are today."

After finishing the designs in April, Guy Architects started looking for building manufacturers in Western Canada, eventually finding one north of Edmonton that had done multi-family residences before.

"We discussed the layouts with them because we wanted to build for the Northern environment, so that means spaciousness because the winters are long and people stay in a lot and we didn't want (the occupants) to get cabin fever," said Guy.

"We had to arrange for the shipping and they're quite wide, over 20 feet wide, and of course we had to get them on the Merv Hardie (ferry) so apparently there were only a couple inches to spare on each side. The drivers are extremely good, they're used to doing this sort of thing." he continued.

He said he plans to hold an open house within the next couple of weeks.