Katerra acquires local architect

Vancouver architect Michael Green has joined forces with the Silicon Valley design-build startup Katerra, a company that promises to shake up the construction sector just as technology has transformed other industries from taxis to accommodation.

On Wednesday, Green said Katerra bought out the shares in his firm, MGA, but it will remain a stand-alone entity within the larger company as “a Katerra continuing to advance the cause of building more tall buildings using mass-timber materials.”

He declined to cite a value for the transaction, but said the acquisition will give MGA access to the tools, materials and techniques that Katerra is developing as a “vertically integrated” designbuild firm working in mass timber.

“What we’re able to do now is take the stuff we’ve been doing out of our 25-person firm in Gastown and bring it to a much bigger scale in North America,” Green said.

The goal, Green said, is to use Katerra’s integrated technology and processes to reduce the cost of delivering high-quality buildings and attractive architecture.

Green wrote the book on tall timber structures in 2012, The Case for Tall Wood Buildings, that laid out a manual to build highrises as tall as 30 storeys using materials such as cross-laminated timber panels and glue-laminate beams.

Katerra has made waves as a startup that raised US$220 million from traditionally tech-related venture-capital funds, which it is pouring into establishing capabilities to design buildings and produce the mass-timber materials they need to pre-fabricate components in factories to assemble on site.