Looking at Modular Construction

Modular construction is becoming a buzzword in the industry. But what does it mean, what is it used for and is it really here to stay? Tim and Carolina discuss all of these questions and more in this episode. 

More About the Show

The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the facade and cladding industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues and former coworkers who love facades and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the building industry.

In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk about modular construction: what is it, can it be used for residential or commercial projects, what modular means for construction companies, how to transport these materials and what the future of modular means for manufacturers. 

What is Modular Construction?

Modular construction is basically componentized construction. For instance, you can think of roof trusses, which come pre-assembled and craned into place. Modular construction is the same process, but for the whole building. 

Also called pre-fab construction, modular construction is taking what would normally be assembled onside, taking them offsite and assembling them in a more efficient way. Then once you have all of the components assembled, you stack the different modules on a truck, ship them to the job site and crane them into place. 

Basically, it’s componentization and building that happens offsite so you can gain the efficiencies of a manufacturer, facility and production that you would normally associate with like jet engines or cars or computers.

Is it for Residential or Commercial Buildings?

It can be used for both, but it really has the biggest gains for single-family production homes. As the country faces a shortage of housing, we need to be able to build homes faster than ever. The caveat is that modular construction will only be efficient for single-family homes if their repeatable designs.

However, it’s mostly being seen in mixed-use, multifamily, hospitality and hospital buildings. Why? Because these types of buildings have the most repetitive floor plans which lend themselves to modular construction. 

Plus, bigger institutional investors and developers have more to gain than single-family home builders, as they want to get their hotels and apartments open faster to start making money. As for hospitals, with the baby boomer demographic getting older, hospitals are needing more and more space. There’s an unprecedented demand for medical needs right now in the United States. 

And, perhaps surprisingly, education facilities are using modular as well. There’s a huge shortage of educational facilities, and modular construction can get them the space they need quickly. 

What Does Modular Mean for Construction Companies?

We’re already seeing modular in quite a few areas across the industry. A lot of HVAC, mechanical, electrical companies, especially in the commercial space, have been doing as much componentizing offsite as possible and delivering systems in chunks. 

There are also companies like a rail and deck company in Washington, that is building their railing systems offsite and then bolting it into the building once they get on-site. Lumberyards are doing this as well. 

If you have a warehouse, you could easily start prefabbing in a week. All you need is space and the right equipment. The barrier to entry is not large. 

How Does Transportation Work?

It can be an effort to aggregate components, materials, vendors and systems, to ensure all of the components get to the site when they need to and get installed in the right order. This is especially challenging because the industry is very disaggregated and fragmented. 

Not to mention, it can be very expensive to put a finished modular component on the road, even if you just go a couple of hundred miles. So how can you get around this? Try penalizing part of the projects and do mods for the rest of it. 

You can also have multiple offsite manufacturers create the mods and then have it assembled onsite by just one general contractor. It’ll smooth out the process. 

What Should Manufacturers Be Thinking About?

Manufacturers need to think about how their materials will hold up over travel without losing its integrity. 

There also needs to be a discussion about cladding. How do you get handmade tile prefabbed and delivered to the site without it being inefficient or ruined? Cladding manufacturers need to think about how they can make modular more efficient and how to optimize for this type of construction that’s becoming more and more popular. 

As contractors and builders start using modular components more and more, manufacturers need to start thinking of how to be able to deliver, if they want to stay in business. 

Modular is here to stay. We need to have discussions between manufacturers, contractors, builders, designs and architects to bring ideas and solutions to ensure our industry keeps moving forward.

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