MDL 501 - Design Development of Middle Housing Projects
Course Description
What is mddl U?
mddl U is Canada’s first professional education program dedicated exclusively to small-scale and missing middle housing development. The program is intended as a practical, skills-based training program for early to mid-career development professionals, emerging small scale developers, municipal planners, and community builders who want to understand how to move middle housing projects from concept to construction.
How is the course structured?
mddl U is an online, self-paced course. It is open for registration across Canada, and students currently enrolled in a post-secondary program anywhere in the country are eligible for a small discount by emailing hello@mddl.co.
The full course is a 100-hour professional education program with six courses. Participants have 6 weeks to complete each course.
- Course 1 (pre-requisite for all following courses) serves as the foundational prerequisite and introduces the middle housing ecosystem, policy context, and development process.
- Courses 2–6 explore specialized topics such as feasibility, financing, approvals, and project delivery.
Courses can be taken individually or completed together to earn the full certificate. Participants have up to four years to complete the full certificate.
Who is the program designed for?
mddl U is designed to help build development expertise and capacity among those who are in the middle housing ecosystem. The intent of the program is to train individuals to help ease the delivery of middle housing - ranging from construction and financing of projects, to streamlining the regulatory and permitting processes. Participants do not need prior development experience.
Course Description
This course examines the design development phase of middle housing projects, where concepts are translated into coordinated, buildable, and permit-ready designs. Learners will explore how project goals, pro forma assumptions, zoning requirements, and technical constraints guide design decisions, and how interdisciplinary consultant coordination shapes design quality, cost, and approvals. The course emphasizes material selection, detailing, and value engineering, balancing durability, sustainability, constructability, and budget. Participants will also learn how to assemble coordinated submission packages, manage documentation and versioning, and anticipate construction-stage and user-driven considerations to support efficient approvals and successful project delivery.
Course Details
Learning Outcomes:
- Distinguish between schematic design and design development by identifying the key milestones, deliverables, and decision points that define a complete and coordinated design development package for middle housing projects.
- Evaluate material systems and detailing strategies by assessing their impacts on cost, durability, sustainability, constructability, and long-term performance, and apply value engineering techniques without compromising core design objectives.
- Prepare a coordinated permit-ready submission package by applying drawing standards, outline specifications, and supplemental documentation practices that address common reviewer concerns and support efficient approvals for middle housing projects.
- Coordinate multidisciplinary consultant inputs, including structural, mechanical, electrical, civil, and landscape, by integrating technical reports, studies, and drawings into a shared documentation set with appropriate timing, version control, and communication protocols.
- Analyse how design decisions influence buildability, user experience, and investment outcomes by considering target user needs, accessibility and universal design principles, construction sequencing, code compliance, and investor exit or revenue strategies.
- Translate project goals, vision, and financial constraints into clear design development criteria, and track alignment between design intent, pro forma assumptions, zoning requirements, and technical constraints throughout the design development phase.