Past Modular Advantage Articles

KOPE enables products to carry information on product data, drawing templates, links to other products and systems, and the rules on how they should be configured and arranged in projects. We need to get rid of moments where decisions are translated either from one skill set to another and from one file type to another. The data that informs you should also be the data that gets passed along to the next link in the chain.

Workforce development and labor challenges continue to be a topic of discussion and area of opportunity for the construction industry, and during this year’s World of Modular conference in Orlando, The Workforce Development Lounge (“The Lounge”), hosted by Momentum Innovation Group, was launched to provide a space for attendees to network and collaborate on labor solutions and resources.

What lessons have mid-career and veteran industry professionals learned over the course of their careers? How has the commercial modular construction industry changed over time, what needs to happen to keep the industry growing, and what keeps them invested?

This year’s winner for Best of Show for Permanent Structures is 355 Sango Court, a 105,818 square foot affordable housing development manufactured by Nampa, Idaho based Autovol. The project team also included Prefab Logic for module design, Nibbi Brothers as the general contractor, Acc U Set Construction as the modular installer, and the overall project design was by David Baker Architects and DCI and Fard.

On March 18-21, the Modular Building Institute presented its 41st annual
convention and tradeshow, hosted again at the luxurious the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, FL. Nearly 1,500 attendees from around the world gathered to learn, network, and find ways to expand both their businesses and the industry at-large.

Prefabrication in a factory setting may improve the performance of modular buildings compared to traditional site-built buildings. To validate this premise, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded a 3-year study from 2020-2023 comparing the energy performance of more than 50 modular and site-built multifamily buildings under construction in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Seattle.

Last year was a shockingly good one for the U.S. economy, at least relative to expectations. Coming into 2023, the conventional wisdom was that near-term recession was inevitable in America. In the face of belligerent excess inflation (above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent mandate), monetary policymakers began ratcheting interest rates higher in March 2022. That process continued throughout the balance of the year and into 2023.