News

The Créneau d’excellence ACCORD Écoconstruction and Les Amis des Jardins de Métis are proud to announce the opening of ERE 132. The Centre for Excellence in Green Building opens its doors to promote green building in all of its forms. The project has been four years in the making and is the fruit of the collaboration of 78 partners. They include the federal and provincial governments (Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, the ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Occupation du territoire and the ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations) and more than fifty industrial partners, mostly from the Lower St. Lawrence region. Among them are six Platinum partners: Premier Tech, Poitras Meubles et design, Lepage Millwork and Groupe Lebel, as well as the Mouvement Desjardins and the Novoclimat 2.0 program. Support for the project was also provided by the cégeps de Rimouski and Matane, CDRIN, SEREX, the R. Howard Webster, the RBC Foundation (Blue Water Project) and Écohabitation. Various local partners contributed to the project: CRE Bas-Saint-Laurent, CLD de La Mitis, MRC de La Mitis, SADC de La Mitis. The Association touristique régional de la Gaspésie and Tourisme Québec also providing funding for the project.

As a centre for excellence, ERE 132 presents the many contributions of the green building industries to the regional economy in addition to illustrating their importance to the environment and human health. It promotes products and technologies created and crafted in the region as well as the expertise and network of green building specialists in the region. It is the region’s centre for excellence in green building. One of the objectives of the project is to promote it nationally and internationally and in so doing present the Lower St. Lawrence regional as a centre for green building and exporter of green expertise.

The group of experts who contributed to the creation of ERE 132 are all from the Lower St. Lawrence region and are active in the fields of architecture, sustainable development, engineering and design. These passionate creators of the project are: Marie-Hélène Nollet from Architectes Goulet et Lebel; Marie-Élaine Banville from Groupe Architecture MB; Pierre Etcheverry of Groupe CONTACT; Mathieu Ouellet and Christian Gagnon, Tetra Tech; and Hélène Tremblay, of Groupe design Hélène Tremblay.

« ERE 132 is the result of an integrated design process. The project was designed and created by a multi-disciplinary team from the region with the support of the Créneau Écoconstruction. It is an exemplary example of regional coooperation: the team of designers worked in close collaboration, the partners were invited to contribute their products and services, the host organization will enrich the visitor experience and the regional tourism economy, and the Créneau Écoconstruction has played its role to leverage participation throughout the process. We would like to underline the remarkable interest of the member manufacturers and their exceptional collaboration. They took ownership of the project and its collaborative nature early on and were instrumental in its success, commented Sarah Landry, directrice du Créneau ACCORD Écoconstruction.

« The choices we make when building and the habits and practices we adopt at home are responsable for more than half of our ecological footprint. Green building offers affordable choices to reduce our environmental impact and to contribute to sustainable development. Les Amis des Jardins de Métis has built its development on these values. It is natural that we offer visitors to Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens an educational experience to discover green building. It is also a venue where research and technological innovation will be shared with residents, students, manufacturers and researchers, » observed Alexander Reford, director of Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens.   

The sponsor of the official opening is Le Domaine Acer, économusée de l’érable.

Technical Information

ERE 132 is a single family dwelling of 2 storeys, without a basement, 1,866 square feet (173 m²) of heated floor space. It is connected to a municipal water source, connected to the power grid and has its own wastewater treatment system. It adheres to the strictest environmental standards and is eligible for LEED^©platinum certification.

Consult the website of ERE 132 (french only)

About the Créneau Écoconstruction

The Créneau Écoconstruction, created at the end of 2010 as part of the ACCORD program managed by the ministère de l’Économie de l’Innovation et des Exportations (MEIE), brings together businesses that manufacture, assemble, create and build ecological building products. This commitment includes wood, but also extends to architecture, civil engineering and building systems. Experts in these fields seek to maximize the use of wood and other ecological resources that are available in the region for residential construction for small and medium sized projects. The Créneau Écoconstruction has set a goal of becoming the North American reference in the development, production and use of products with minimum impact on the environment for residential construction. The Créneau seeks to create the synergy necessary between the various sectors in the residential building industries in the Lower St. Lawrence region through strategic projects that support the development of a new generation of builders.  

About Les Jardins de Métis /Reford Gardens

The home for ERE 132 is a tourism icon, cultural destination and historic site that welcomes more than 55,000 visitors every year. The opening of ERE 132 on the site of Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens marks a new moment in the organization’s development to expand its offferings and to reach out to younger visitors through partnerships with colleges and universities. The strategic opportunity that this project represents in creating a centre for excellence in green building is consistent with the organization’s experience in promoting architectural excellence. Seven wooden buildings have been constructed over the past ten years (Governor General’s medal in architecture in 2006 and prix Coalition Bois Québec in 2010). Since its inaugural edition in 2000, the International Garden Festival has attracted more than 1 million visitors. The completion of ERE 132 reinforces the role of the organization in promoting architectural innovation.