Prefab Lab
production-based approach

A Production-Based Approach to Designing and Building Large Modular Homes

The production approach will expand the modular construction market and increase profits for builders and developers!

If the prefab industry wants to capture a larger market share, developers need to change how they approach building design. This change will benefit everyone.

Most builders either knowingly or unknowingly buy a plot of land and then design a building or several buildings to meet specific standards and market pricing.

It sounds sensible, but in the end, it hampers the development of the modular industry.

In reality, for the modular industry, this is a unhealthy dependence that brings immediate satisfaction but guarantees negative long-term consequences.

Buying land and developing a unique project for it is fine, but it requires expensive designers, engineers, skilled labor, and a lot of time and money for construction. Why bother with all that in 2024?

Modular production can easily deliver this project, but no factory will completely tailor itself to the developer—it works the other way around!

The best approach for our market is "product development."

What does that mean?

  • Instead of making every project unique, plans are made for a basic structure that can be duplicated many times in different places on different plots. This allows the design costs of any number of buildings to be amortized.
  • The basic design can be tailored to the target buyer group—young people aged 30+ on the first step of the career ladder and so on. It can also be regional.
  • Apartments or houses must be standardized, making them perfect for modular construction. The appearance and common areas can be custom-designed and built to give the project a local flair and some individuality.

Reducing costs and timeframes will require real innovations, but most developers are already seeking improvements by investing in complex software or more advanced management systems. This is good, but they don't solve the fundamental problem: how to build is largely unchanged.

The key to modular growth is focusing on building typologies most suitable for modular construction.

The real opportunity lies in projects with high population density that utilize technology and repeatability: multi-apartment buildings, student dormitories, hotels. And remember about the rental sector in these segments.

We can increase the market share of modular homes many times over and improve construction productivity, but it will require new thinking. This thinking starts with developers.

To move beyond a certain stage of development, the modular industry must better serve modular-focused segments. At the same time, developers must view modules not as farms or wall panels but as a finished product from which they can start their development project.