03: OD Krieg on Designing the Future of Housing
Host Michael Grigoriev speaks with OD Krieg, President of Intelligent City and a national voice in the movement to industrialize housing through design. Together, they explore how Canada can move beyond one-off construction and toward scalable, sustainable building systems without compromising design quality to meet Canada's housing challenges.
OD reflects on Canada’s evolving design identity, the need for higher baseline expectations around quality, and why prefab doesn’t mean generic it means better. Drawing from his experience in Germany and Vancouver, he highlights how thoughtful system design can unlock both customization and repeatability at scale.
The conversation digs into the challenges of scaling housing supply, the role of public investment, and the cultural shift required to reframe prefab as a premium, not a compromise. From mass timber and manufacturing automation to partnerships with architects, OD outlines how Intelligent City is building the full stack to meet the moment.
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