Our Story
Grey & Ivy’s purpose is to harness the power & positive energy that comes from personal creativity and self-determination allowing all youth to drive their own career and creative paths for the betterment of housing, education, and the economy.
We are a tech company developing technology to allow communities to teach design & build the way they want to empower self-determined solutions.
We are researchers, researching the community-driven balance of the 4 pillars of sustainability: Environment, Economic, Cultural, and Social. We are researching housing, education, and training, and how it creates housing and is key to both social determinants of health and proximal determinants of health which are the cause of most social crises.
Planting the seed that cultivates innovation
We believe that awareness of design, making, and crafting wields the power to improve our quality of living, inspire awe, and provide comfort and healing. We explore ways to democratize the skills and knowledge of designers, architects, construction, and trades workers, to empower people to take ownership of their careers and futures.
In our Design-Build educational and consultation workshops, we guide communities of youth and adults of all ages through the Grey & Ivy process. We identify the needs of a community, dream into a design solution, develop an idea through sketching and modeling with VR and AR technologies, and finally realizing the idea into a fully built result. These designs may look like a child’s playhouse, a paper model, a Knowledge Centre for a remote community, or even a warming hut placed alongside the frozen Assiniboine River in Winnipeg.
Through these workshops and educational experiences, we’ve clearly seen how much an individual’s confidence, motivation, and career opportunities can grow from the act of making, collaborating with others, and building with your own hands.
Meet Our Team
Grey & Ivy is a collective of innovators, architects, tech designers, researchers, educators, and more.
Learn more here.
Issues We Care About
Good quality, affordable, and decent housing is critically inaccessible throughout Manitoba and Canada, more so for our First Nations communities. Grey & Ivy understands that since “housing comes first”, the housing crisis and the systematic problems contributing to it must be deeply researched and addressed. Job awareness, access to education and training, building strong connections with the land, and engaging communities begin to build a foundation for overcoming these barriers.
There is no shortage of issues that contribute to the current systemic problems that plague our communities and our future generations. Some are easier to identify than others, however, in order to truly understand the complex challenges and barriers that these communities must overcome, we must understand how they are all connected.
Each issue presents itself as a substantial challenge and barrier that extends beyond its initial scope, resulting in a systematic struggle that prevents the growth of our communities.
To help us make a difference in these issues learn more about becoming a partner.
Community First
Only together, can we create hope for our future generations
Community engagement is fundamental to our identity here at Grey & Ivy. It is the foundation which all our beliefs and values are built upon. It is by far the most critical part of our entire process and it is what makes us truly unique.
We acknowledge that we all come from various backgrounds with a wide variety of life experiences. We understand that every community is uniquely distinct based on the meaningful relationships that are formed within. It is our goal to not only understand these relationships but to celebrate them for what they truly are.
Throughout our work, regardless of location or whether it’s within the community or remote, our dedication to respecting, honouring, and celebrating these existing relationships will always be our number one priority. In order to truly affect positive change within our environments, we must discover and take control of each of our own identities and understand that we all have an important role to play.