NREL Submission - Target Market

Target Market

Customers: Multi-Family builders, urban-planners, municipal governments, and ultimately the urban public. Market and Industry: Large Scale ($150 million or larger) Multi-Family construction is scratching the surface of sustainability, finding that it’s good for the bottom line as well as marketing image. But the builders aren’t going “Deep Green” because they don’t have a proven option that can be easily duplicated. Modular construction of a facility with integrated advanced on-site waste recycling and renewable energy production improves on the cost structure of site construction and reduces the impact the construction company and ultimately the end users have on the environment. Competition: Multi-Family engineering firms adopting similar design criteria: We will work to establish public standards that encourage the extension of the designs, thereby driving down the ultimate cost of the construction. We’ll look to license and consult on the model with other industry players. Barriers: The status quo: construction and land planning is a very conservative industry. Experimentation is rare and celebrated as architectural marvels, yet the majority of residential construction follows a few standard models: Stand-alone single family/Duplex, Row House, Apartment complex, and High-rise.

In brief, the company will be selling a virtual model of a building and design spec for constructing or reconfiguring a manufacturing plant.

Since we're talking about doing *lots* of these lego blocks the model is going to be of a large facility or campus. When you have a large facility you need to manage energy, food, water, transportation and waste. Most developers rely on the 'build a road' model and then tell the city to take care of all the rest of those things. The plan here is to take advantage of all these bad-ass new green technologies to do on-site energy production; waste processing and water capture and re-use to eliminate the need for the 'build a road' standard. Roads and big buildings go together like... well like an apartment complex. Apartments follow the 'build a road' model but because of their density you get a pavement surface with buildings scattered about. Every building is oriented to it's parking. It's not 'walkable' in many cases and it's rarely desired as an 'ownership' opportunity for the ex-suburban.

We're not going to follow the usual 'build a road' model. If you've read other parts of this blog you'll know what I mean, but for brevity (and IP's sake) I'm not going into it right now. Suffice it to say we're going to do in-situ processing of waste; water and even food production. Now, I'm not saying this will be a totally enclosed space-station that happens to sit on planet earth. It will tie into the surrounding grid for the usual benefits of grid tie utilities; but the on-site processes will reduce the life-long environmental impact of the building; reduce it's operating costs in significant ways and provide a *very* marketable end-product for attracting the Environmentalist Yuppies.

But who actually *BUY's* the model... aka where's the money yo!

Multi-family; mixed use developers. There are going to be a lot of these in the next few years. The eco-yuppies aren't the only people looking to go ex-suburban. There is a HUGE aging population from the Baby Boom that is about to require a much more urban lifestyle because the suburban home usually isn't suited to long term elderly care.

With a complete BIM model; manufacturing spec and in-situ utilities, all the developer has to provide is a green-space big enough. They call up our company and say "I want a campus that can house X hundreds or Y Thousands on the plot bordered by road's A, B, C & D." We turn to our CAD team and architect geniuses and they get the land survey and plop a virtual building on it. The BIM model then spits out a list of materials required; local sources for said materials; a few registered contractors and a complete project plan that details the first spadeful of dirt to the opening day. We charge our fee and they then use the model to build the actual thing.

Neat thing about the model... we then feed it into a couple of other bits of software and we get video walk-through; model homes; even full 3D virtual reality simulations that prospective clients and their to-be homeowners can use to visualize their own space; before the ground is ever disturbed. Pre-sales can begin immediately... and not just to the big anchor tenant usually required for retail & office buildings.

So, who's the competition? I'd say every big engineering & design firm out there has an ability to compete in this space. Building models like this takes a lot of work and maintenance but it can be done with enough focus and effort. To start; we will be focusing on the large multi-family mixed use new urban style construction. With that kind of focus; we can differentiate with the technology we integrate for utilities; the style of buildings; and the manufacturing lines. As the company matures we would expand the options available to smaller campuses and possibly even more typical looking, 'dense suburban' development.

To encourage adoption & sales of our models. We would open-source and crowd-source some aspects of the model's themselves. Even though this could encourage direct competition; it's more likely to spur derivatives and the widespread adoption and re-use of the manufacturing standards - driving down the subsequent cost of the model's actual construction. We are a service provider; not the construction company itself. We would maintain some control over aspects of the model like municipal technology integration and structural systems. With widespread adoption of the specifications and myriad options for the manufacturing of the interior spaces; our customers the big construction firms would turn to us to meld them all together and manage the inputs into their project.

Other customers of these models - governments of developing countries. Countries like China and India are managing HUGE new middle classes. They are paying attention to the mistakes of their developed nation forbears and understand that the cul-de-sac isn't the sustainable way to do things. Urban spaces are critical for these countries and the development of 5D models of the New Urban style for their countries would be of enormous benefit to them.

Finally - who else needs the ability to quickly design self-sustaining facilities. The US and other countries who build large military bases around the world would be ideal customers of a facility that could be quickly constructed and has some measure of self-containment. Not quite the 'Deep Green' we were thinking earlier; but this olive green market is certainly viable.

To plan 50 years down the line (I believe in long term goals too) the viable markets become off-planet installations. Yup, we're talking the moon, mars and beyond. However, to do it there - we have to know how to do it here first.