NREL Submission - Opportunity

Opportunity

There’s a better way to build the newly popular mixed use communities: Modular, Environmentally Sustainable and Fast. The worldwide emergent middle class is desperately looking for a cost effective option that allows them the high-tech luxury of the modern, semi-urban American lifestyle, AND earth friendliness. Demanding it all, and willing to pay a premium for it.

I just picked up Matt Stevens Managing a Construction Firm on Just 24 Hours a Day. In it he claims that even with the advent of computing; the construction industry hasn't seen the productivity increases the rest of the world has. I aim to change this.

Part of the issue that I can see is that the Knowledge Management (note the caps - key words) of the construction industry is still in nascent stages. BIM (Building Information Modeling) or building a virtual model of the building before you build the actual thing is only really being experimented with. I'm part of a Linkedin group about BIM and while success story after success story is touted; most people are still looking for ways & means to prove the benefits of BIM to their construction bosses. Everyone claims that once people see the power of a 5 dimensional BIM model (3d structural with cost & time project management dimensions included) their whole worldview changes.

I believe it. Show someone the benefits and control of a complete project plan (I'm talking the real deal here... not the half-assed thing most people call a project plan) and their worldview can and usually does change.

But that's all about the 'HOW'... lets talk about the why (I'll get into the details when talking about the market next... but lets get a basic overview)

The middle class is changing. For years it's been focused on material goods and bigger houses. The recession rung a bell in the belfry and it's still reverberating. Echos bounced all over the world. Some people panicked; others simply slowed down and took stock.

The Executive branch of the US government has changed it's stance on home-ownership... though even that powerful voice cannot stop the psychosis that underlies the *requirement* for a person to own their own space. The desire for control and the empowerment that ownership provides, not to mention the societal and tax benefits all drive us to crave the owner title.

So now the middle class has been told - ownership isn't for everyone. And they thought; "sure... not everyone can be an owner, but I want it for me!" The market still exists but as a result of the recession and the changing attitudes; people are beginning to look for options that may not fit the 'norm'.

Enter 'Green'. The buzzword of the decade; nay of the century. This re-evaluation of the environmental impact of the typical suburban lifestyle leaves those of us who have done the reading horrified at our impact. I was raised an environmentalist. I even went to a march or two; planted my trees, did a tour of the wild-life refuge and then went on consuming; driving everywhere; and in general being a typical middle class yuppie. Many of my generation (Baby boomlets as I call us) did the same. So, what to do when you find out you're 'that guy'. We start looking for options. We find amazing ones in California with Michelle Kauffman's designs; We see custom 'green' houses going up all over the place (and while awesome - know they are forever out of our price ranges); I even see some interesting thinking in the New Urban movement but the options there are few and far between.

But it still all comes down to cost - and green is expensive. We want it; we're willing to pay a bit more for it (see the organic BOOM even through the recession) but we can't be ignorant of the bottom line.

So the market is looking for inexpensive, green living spaces. Enter modular construction.

Now modular isn't new - Hell the original suburban houses were kits sold by sears back just after the great depression. Through the decades though balloon frame houses (the usual stick & brick's in suburbia) were seen as a higher quality product than the trailer park and factory built houses that could be put on the back of a truck and hauled to the site. The size restrictions and material choices on those houses as well kept them in the 'low rent' districts.

However, recent advances in modular have given rise to places like this, this, and this. These are homes built in a factory; trucked to the site and assembled like legos on pre-formed foundations. Lots of money is saved by building this way - mostly in the time savings; but it's still one-off operations. We're not kicking these things out like Henry Ford. Building a single car in the shop around the corner may save you some small amount of money; but build a thousand and you're talking major productivity improvements.

We have to scale this operation UP. The best way to do that is... drumroll please - BIM coupled with a standard manufacturing spec.