echoforest

Project description

Located on the Terra Perma site, in the heart of the MRC d'Argenteuil, échoforêt is a project for a new space equipped with tools, equipment and expertise related to digital manufacturing and sustainable development.

It works in synergy with the Communautique echofab, the 1st Fab Lab in Quebec, operating since 2011 and located in Montreal's Central District.

Echoforest's vision is to capitalize on local synergies and skills to help make the Argenteuil MRC a hub of innovation in the bioeconomy.

It offers a life-size space for co-creation and fabrication, where citizens, businesses, educational institutions, local governments and community organizations can use an ecosystem approach to develop concrete, locally-adapted responses to the challenges of transformation:

- of the economy, taking into account the conservation and regeneration of biodiversity and,

- of Quebec's industrial sector. 

The project

The echoforest initiative is a Fab Lab project located in Terra Perma, Harrington that contributes to the development of the bioeconomy, taking into account the conservation and regeneration of biodiversity and an inclusive appropriation of digital technology.

Spearheaded by Communautique and its Echofab Fab Lab, one of Quebec's leading players in the social appropriation of information and communications technologies, the project aims to be a rural creativity laboratory, harnessing the potential of new digital fabrication methods found in Fab Labs for local businesses, start-ups and the public.

Terra Perma

Terra Perma is a residential and eco-entrepreneurial community in the heart of the Laurentians. Bordering the famous Rivière Rouge to the west and located in the Mont-Tremblant region, its 800 hectares are a sanctuary where many exciting activities can be enjoyed on site and nearby.

Terra Perma is also a vast park of over 200 acres managed jointly with the Terra Perma Foundation. Terra Perma's mission is to preserve the natural habitat and promote sustainable development.

The themes

Communautique proposes to focus initially on seven interconnected themes. These themes will build on the complementary expertise already offered by échofab and Terra Perma, as well as by local training and educational establishments, businesses, organizations and citizens.

Biodiversity conservation and regeneration

Eco-housing

Energy production and storage

Manufacture of agro-forestry tools

Permaculture

Biomaterials production

Research in artistic creation

Project chronology

SEPTEMBER 2022

Back to Terra Perma at the end of summer!
The team adopts several roles to carry out the project of co-constructing a floor on stilts to stabilize the Zome. It was also an opportunity for new team and Board members to familiarize themselves with the Terra Perma site and the echoforest project!

NOVEMBER 2021 

Back to the Zome to validate the measurements and try on a canvas, with a view to being able to cover it and use it as a gite! As a next step, we're going to print a mini version of the Zome in 3d and test the colors, windows and fastening systems with a miniature prototype. When it's ready, patterns of the full-size zome will enable us to cut and make the final version.

OCTOBER 2021 

Wonderful collaboration on Zome's first project! After his debut at Campus Fab City Montréal here he is in his natural element at Terra Perma ! Designed and built by Vedanta Balbahadur, Raquel Penalosa, de ékm architecture + aménagement, André DesRochers cabinetmaker, Patrice Millette de Kempas, Maya Millette-Mestre, Bouthillette Parizeau and the echofab team. Thanks to the Formétal and for his advice, to Francis Rodier of Signmax. Zome 10: shapes of great perfection, with geometric relationships between the sphere and the Golden Number. A perfect first gathering place to continue exchanging ideas, and dreaming up the next stage of Echoforêt.

AUGUST 2021 

Two co-creation sessions, a collaboration between Communautique, Terra-Perma and Pivot - Coopérative d'architecture:

+ First session at Fab City Campus

+ Second session, at Terra Perma, as part of an introductory permaculture team stay.

The aim was to define the project's ambitions together, and put the first actions into practice. The team was able to dream up the site on the spot, imagining the various experimental zones.

2017 – 2018

A prototype is born: the echofab DD was the first experiment in an innovation cluster for environmentally-friendly digital manufacturing. Created in partnership with industrial players in the eastern part of the metropolis, the EchoFab DD has enabled us to experiment with synergies between industry, research and citizens.

2017

Visit the Green Fab Lab from Valldaura Labs in Barcelona.