North America’s first tall mass timber build to rise under an Upbrella enclosure broke ground in Terrebonne, Canada, yesterday, with Québec’s Fonds de solidarité FTQ turning the first sod on a 12-storey, 164-unit rental tower that will be assembled floor-by-floor beneath a pre-built sealed roof lifted by hydraulic jacks as each new storey is built underneath — and the first Québec project to break ground under the province’s new 18-storey ceiling for encapsulated mass timber.
Wood Central understands that the Terrebonne build is also the first project to enter construction under Québec’s new 18-storey ceiling for encapsulated mass timber, introduced by Ministerial Order 2025-001 under Article 127.1 of the Loi sur le bâtiment. The order, signed by the Minister of Labour and in force from 9 July 2025 through 8 July 2030, lets designers and contractors proceed without the case-by-case equivalent-measure approvals previously required by the Régie du bâtiment du Québec for tall wood projects in the province.
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ is pitching the tower as a repeatable model that its real estate arm can roll out across the portfolio, with Béïque telling the ceremony the fund is “accelerating the delivery of new homes to help address the current shortage” whilst showing that “mass timber offers a more sustainable and responsible way to build.” The fund has committed to reaching $12 billion in sustainable-development-linked assets by 2027, with the Terrebonne project forming part of that target.
The prefabricated mass timber structure “enables material reuse, improves energy performance and enhances comfort for residents,” Raymond told the ceremony, whilst cutting the carbon intensity of the Fonds immobilier’s real estate portfolio. Traversy situated the build within Terrebonne’s broader strategy of “providing more housing while focusing on sustainable and innovative solutions,” citing the local housing shortage and climate targets as the council’s grounds for backing.
Invented in Brossard, Québec, in 2014 by Upbrella Construction under founder and CEO Joey Larouche, the Upbrella system installs a completed roof at ground level before hydraulic actuators, synchronised to within three millimetres across 20 to 30 cylinders, raise the shelter one floor at a time as each new storey is built underneath. The technology cuts tall-build programmes by 25 to 30 per cent, eliminates the tower crane from dense urban sites, and keeps the exposed mass timber dry through the full erection cycle, securing Aon-certified insurance premium reductions of 30 to 35 per cent on comparable builds.
Upbrella’s first mass timber deployment anywhere came with Monaco’s A Fighera residence, formerly known as Villa Carmelha, a nine-storey national housing building completed in November 2024 with a 100 per cent wood post-and-beam structure and CLT floor slabs supplied by French wood-solutions firm Simonin. Terrebonne brings the mass timber application of the crane-free technology home to North America, with Cecobois, Québec’s centre of expertise in commercial wood construction, providing technical backing across the build.
Provencher Roy leads the design as architect, with Genimac on structural engineering, Elema as builder, and JCB Construction Canada as general contractor. Elema and JCB are both Fonds régionaux de solidarité FTQ partners, with Développement immobilier CT, landscape practice Dyotte Déom Paysage, and acoustic consultancy MJM Conseillers en acoustique filling out the project consortium.
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ closed November 2025 with $23 billion in net assets drawn from the retirement savings of more than 816,000 Québec shareholders, with the Fonds immobilier’s pipeline running 32 projects in development or construction valued at $4.7 billion, including nearly 5,000 residential units under construction and 78 operating assets totalling 6,445 rental dwellings. The first units at Terrebonne are expected for handover in spring 2028 — a delivery date that will give Québec the continent’s first operational tall mass timber tower completed under an Upbrella enclosure.
