Integrating Sustainable Practices into Modular Design w/ FK Architecture [podcast transcript]

Welcome everyone. My name is John McMullen and I'm the Marketing Director here at MBI. Today I'm joined by Gary Badge and Manny Lamarche with FK Architecture. Gary and Manny have returned to talk about how FK has incorporated modular into their overall portfolio and about their new efforts to design more sustainable modular structures. Gary and Manny welcome back.

Gary Badge

Thank you, John again. Good to be back.

John McMullen

So since there's two of you, let's introduce yourself so everyone knows your voices.

Gary Badge

I'm Gary Badge, managing Principal at FK Architecture.

Manny Lamarche

I'm Manny Lamarche, a Senior Designer at FK Architecture.

John McMullen

Excellent. So you guys have been on the podcast before, catch us up on the past 10 months. What's been going on at FK Architecture? A new name for one thing!

Gary Badge

Sure, absolutely. It's been super busy, super crazy. We unveiled the new logo, as you mentioned, and the new brand. It's been very successful. It's been eye opening process a lot involved with it. It's exciting. It's gotten us into new endeavors that we didn't even know existed. We've got lots of compliments. Our clients or friends have complimented us on refreshing our look and image. And we've attracted a lot of new attention, especially with our social media platforms or website. So that's been pretty fun and it's been part of our whole, the whole means and methods of diversifying, getting into new markets and just expanding what FK is about.

John McMullen

That's awesome. What props to your marketing people. I know that rebrand takes a lot of work.

Gary Badge

It sure does and we did it all in house too. So that was even more challenging. But we've had a lot of great people here and, you know, we thank them.

John McMullen

So how have you and your colleagues at FK made to transition to modular design? I know when we talked late last year, you guys were just getting going. Has it been a smooth process?

Manny Lamarche

So far, so good, but it's lower than Gary would like I think. Lately, it would seem as if there is a greater awareness about modular technology, and we have been approached to investigate adapting current products to modular applications.

Our most current modular effort involves repositioning a tiny house concept that we had prepared for a large resort developer into a boutique hospitality product incorporating modular components. This approach is unique in that we have been tasked with coming up with a hybrid solution bridging on both on-site and off-site technology technologies, as well as potential implementation of prefabricated components that would plug and play into the finished product.

So at FK Architecture we continue to explore how best to adapt our traditional way of thinking about building design to achieve greater efficiencies and tangible value to products that we design and build.

John McMullen

That's awesome. I want to come back to some of those specifics. I have a more general question to start off with though. Since you guys have done traditional architecture for a long time and have just now begun to incorporate modular, I was wondering if you could speak to the design process and how it differs between traditional and modular. What are the inherent challenges to each?

Manny Lamarche

When we examine the big picture of technological evolution, we may notice that the human experience is always in a constant flux. There was a time when you needed a key to open up a door. Today, you may use your mobile phone to achieve that goal. Just like the world of electronic innovations, modular technologies have been around for a long time. As it relates to residential products, it has been at least 100 years since the first modular and prefabricated ideas were floating around and as we can see, it is fast approaching its primetime. The constant pursuit of greater efficiencies, in both project cost and resource management, tends to drive innovative thinking. Thus, economics is ever present in everything we do. There is always a fine balance between acceptable quality and the cost of a particular design solution.

So as we continue our exploration in modular technologies and have in depth conversations with builders and investors, we're starting to notice an evolution in our way of thinking about these things, as well as a greater sophistication in the understanding of this modular field by individuals in the more traditional on site construction industry. That said, I would suggest that the greatest difference between designing for on site versus off-site construction is the mental process of your viciously pulling apart the individual building blocks from the building as a whole. Thinking in terms of functional compartments or modules, reminds me of the bubble diagrams we used to do while conceptualizing a building during the initial stages of the design process. Except that in the offsite universe, those bubbles retain the structural integrity as part of a total module product that by design must travel to its final destination.

At FK Architecture, we see only advantages with implementation of modular thinking and technological strategies in order to deliver higher quality for the money to the markets we serve.

John McMullen

So speaking of these contemporary methods, the evolving technologies that you've alluded to, I was wondering if you could speak specifically to modular design. What are the potential benefits not only for designers, but of the projects themselves?

Gary Badge

Well, there's been a few guys that I've spoken to recently and I think the benefits is how we organize the project and become more efficient. Modular itself, it's about efficiency, it's about repetition, it's about quality control, sustainability. So all those things are playing into how we're doing our documentation, how we discuss things, our contracting team, they’re still learning.

We're over here on the eastern seaboard, where we haven't seen a lot of modular, so its not a lot is going on. They're still trying to catch up, but it's a more organized conversation and there's a method to the madness. Like Manny said, when he have everybody in the room, from the onset of the design process, you're getting a scope out early, you're getting everybody's questions early, division of disciplines, and who's responsible for what is getting done early. And that all plays into how the fabrication ends up at the end of the day.

So it's pretty helpful, it's pretty unique. It differs from how we do a conventional project because you don't always have everybody in the room at the beginning of the project. You know, we tried to do kickoff meetings, we tried to get everybody going. But at that time, still there's something left out or something that drags on. With modular, you got to press that you got to have these questions answered early on. So we're exploring ways that we could even have more flexibility. That's kind of the difference for me.

Manny Lamarche

I think it is very interesting as we speak with builders, that are the guys who have to deal with all the challenges of information that doesn't show up on the drawings or is misinterpreted by subcontractors. It's interesting to see how they start to understand and speak about the possibilities of modular thinking and fabrication to bring efficiencies to the products that they do, or even altering the very foundation of the product they do.

Gary Badge

You know, one of the big things we're talking about too, is in labor. The quality of the labor, the labor shortage, I mean, that's in every industry. That is something that we've been hearing all over from all clients and all sectors. The last three conversations with contractors have been specifically, how can I overcome my labor deficiencies? They feel having the controlled modular environment is going to be an answer to that problem. The waste material, that's another thing that they talk about, how many mistakes are made, how much extra material you have to buy and the cost of materials or how to control these days so that they're trying to be efficient, They’re trying to still deliver the project on time, on budget. It's a good product that people are proud of, and it's going to stand up for a long time. So modular is helping bring that awareness to everybody. It's weird, because the discussions come up so much recently, whether it's because we're engaging that deliverable more or people are just catching wind of it, but it's definitely been talked about a lot. In the last 10 months, we've had a lot of discussion. So, I’m feeling pretty good about it.

Manny Lamarche

Yeah. These are people that have been doing the same on site type work for decades. In many instances, they are the ones that somehow know that Gary has been talking and Theresa, maybe they listen to the podcast or flown by the Institute website. It's no longer a secret. It’s something that's becoming, hey, I'd like to learn more. How can I use this technology to do better?

Gary Badge

Yeah, that's the question everyone's asking.

John McMullen 

So when you talk about the efficiencies that modular brings to the table, the less waste that's generated, it goes back to a point you were making earlier about sustainability, really, all of these factor into sustainability. I was wondering why you find that to be so important. How do you define sustainability when you're talking to contractors, when you're designing products? I'm curious how you define that term.

Gary Badge

Well, we're introducing it more and more. There was a movement, years back, with the Green Building Council and everybody getting LEED certified, LEED accredited, pioneering everybody to save the planet kind of thing. From my standpoint, it's my own personal opinion, I don't think it went in the direction that made a whole lot of sense. It became something that was a specialty kind of a group, it costs some time and some money to be involved and engaged in it. Lots of developers and contractors didn't catch on because it wasn't part of their cost analysis. It costs more to be sustainable. Sustainable to me is to be respectful of your environment, to work within your environment. The world is not a place that we can neglect and that's all we've done as a species, in my opinion. There's symposiums every day, there's news every day about weather events and catastrophic things that are out of our control, temperatures and sea levels and everything like that. We're running out of land, we've got more people, there's got to be a better way to integrate our existence with our canvas and the world Earth, that's our canvas, that's what we live in. If we can’t integrate with it, and we just keep recreating it, and having our own agenda, it's going to spit us out like we're a virus.

I mean the world is doing that back. It's like, I got to rid myself of this. It's a challenge and to get people to understand it is hard because it takes a certain kind of mindset. It takes the ability to adapt to change, and people won't gravitate towards change naturally. Last week, I was at the lodging conference, and I gave a speech with some fellow panelists about this same very topic. I talked about how modular could benefit and could be part of the solution for how we can integrate with the environment better, how we can have less impact on how we're doing things and building construction practices. It’s evident because you're building in a controlled environment, so your carbon footprint is smaller, you're able to control the amount of material that you're building with, how many cuts it takes if you're doing wood or steel, how you're putting things together is done more systematically than in the field. And because of that, you have less waste, you need less materials and IE you're not impacting the environment as much. You're also doing your site development during that phase. There's less disturbance, you're not on site 14 months. You're on site to do your initial area development and then within a period of time your modules arrive and within a few weeks, you've got the product up and running. You're getting your CO and you're out of the door. Conventionally though, you've got machinery running a lot, you've got disturbance of the land, you got noise pollution and your emissions are not controlled like in a factory environment.

So it's really important to me, and I guess it hasn't always been now I've adapted to change. Just flying in and out of Orlando here, I've seen, we used to have a lot of trees and now we don't have so many trees, but we have an awful lot of people and an awful lot of buildings. Our state is an easy target for building and construction because we don't have mountainous terrains or anything to overcome that's challenging from that standpoint. It's pretty flat, it's easy to build on, but I think we're going to be quickly realizing that we have to do things differently, because it's not going to last forever. You might not be thinking about yourself today, but you’ve got to be thinking about your children and your children's children and everybody else for years to come and how they're going to use the environment. Whatever practices we do today will set the precedent for tomorrow.

John McMullen

So you touched on this just now, but I wanted to revisit just quickly. How do you quantify your sustainability efforts when you're talking to clients? What metrics do you use to help a project become more sustainable?

Gary Badge

Well, I think I rely mostly on the MEP engineers to talk about that in terms of the life cycle cost analysis. Your initial costs are probably not going to be seen, but your long term costs are going to be seen. If you're using solar energy or more efficient kinds of energies instead of using the split system condensing unit farm, for instance, you're going to see that you're using less energy over time. Therefore you're spending less money on energy. When we talk about just the building materials themselves and we talk about how we're doing with wood for instance, we have a lot of clients that want to do wood construction, which if it's done right, you can replenish the forest, but we've got so much building going on, I don't know that we are doing a good job with that. So we talk about, how can we design the building in a way that uses less material? That's a way to quantify and less material, in turn talks about cost. That is always a topic of discussion with anybody that we're engaged with, you know, what's going to cost? How much is it going to solve the budget?

Unfortunately, I think sustainability, whether we're talking about quantifying it or whether we're just talking about it in general, it needs to be thought of a little bit differently. It's about the survival of our species. When we're doing a project, it's affecting that, especially new construction because most of what we're doing in our world is new construction. We tried to promote clients to look at repositioning existing buildings, and we try to find sites where their project might work with that. We do a lot of planning as well when we're at the forefront of the project with the owners, and when it's searching out for land. We'd say hey, maybe you could do this differently, maybe you don't have to clear 60 acres, maybe you can do less acreage and get more units. There's many hurdles with that, right? Because we also have to deal with the jurisdiction and codes require a certain thing. You have to educate everybody. It's not any one entity that has to be committed. Everybody has to, and the only way that that works, is by talking about it, by collaborating, by sharing, by getting out there having discussions like we're having today, and just peeking people's interest.

John McMullen

So are there any specific suggestions that when you're talking with other designers, or new designers, people who are learning the craft? What suggestions do you have for them when they're looking to create more sustainable structures?

Gary Badge

Well, I think one of the ways that we're doing it is we write sustainable material product methods into the specifications. So once it becomes part of that, it's sort of a gospel, not everybody follows it, there's always a bidding and negotiating point. If you're getting it in there early and you're shooting for the maximum amount of things that you want in a project early, chances are you might be able to save it by the time you're done going through the process. So, that's one way that we're doing it.

Manny Lamarche

What we've noticed is that not too long ago, when you talked about sustainability, sustainable strategies, there was this general understanding, I guess, that you might be at record right now. I think that in the last few years with the flooding in Europe, the fires in California, more people are understanding that something happened to the environment and it's not just a normal curve of just nature doing things. Clearly, there is some type of input that we are injecting into the equation. It starts to make people think, well perhaps we need to reevaluate the way we do things. So, when that relates back to the building industry, that's what I see. A certain curiosity from what you may consider traditional builders opening their minds to exploring other alternatives. At the forefront of that is modular design and fabrication. So in the factory, there is an ability to better manage resources, so indirectly you start to apply green thinking into how you can make more money. The ultimate effect is, if I don't have to spend that much more and get an equal or better product, why not do it? So, that's our natural way into modular thinking, publication and planning.

Gary Badge

So, specs and then introduce the discussion about modular. A different deliverable altogether. Those are ways that we're educating and starting conversations with other design professionals and developers to consider sustainability.

Manny Lamarche 

Then, sustainability equates to the fabrication economy.

Gary Badge

You’ve got to show them what can they put their hands on today so that they understand. They may not understand tomorrow. I understand well I'm not going to have a blue sky forever. Florida is going to become a sandbar at the point of Orlando and the rest of it is going to be gone because it’s sea level. I mean it's real life issues that people neglect because if it doesn't affect me then I don't care. It doesn't bother me and is it coming out of my pocket? No. So I don't I don't necessarily think about it.

Manny Lamarche

Our core business is intelligent entertainment. It's hard to entertain and be hospitable when the world around you is on fire or wiping out towns.

Gary Badge

I mean, that's adventurous.

Manny Lamarche

Right? So, I think it makes sense for everyone who is involved in sustainable practices, both on the construction side and on the planning side, money making side of the planet. I think that modular construction just gravitates to that. Well, I can do better by changing the way I think about how I build. Right?

John McMullen

Well, this is a good segue. A lot of this conversation has been about sustainability, using less materials. Manny mentioned exploring new ways to build and I want to go back to one of the topics you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. You guys mentioned that you were working on a tiny home concept. I was wondering if you could expand on that, sort of define that for people who aren't as familiar and tell us about what you're doing?

Manny Lamarche

Sure thing. We're currently tasked with developing a concept package for a tiny house idea we had originally created for a separate development. This time around the market demand is for a bit larger footprint to be rolled out in a completely different geographic location and with a different demographic profile. I would say that the most peculiar aspect of this effort is that our client’s strategy demands a hybrid counterpart that would be factory made here in America, then shipped to site using conventional flatbed trucks for offsite assembly. We're now in the initial stages of defining this concept and so far it has been well received. This hybrid model, with a combination of onsite and offsite strategies, appears to be a good scheme to introduce modular thinking in those regions where on-site construction is currently the dominant industry. An important finding is the key interest shown by traditional manufacturers of products destined for the onsite market, and who are curious about adopting such products for offsite implementation.

So we're witnessing this interesting phenomenon of cross pollination of knowledge and skills among construction related industries, always with the aim of doing something more efficiently, more economically, or faster from idea to market while better managing waste and quality control. We remain hopeful that an increasing number of our long-term projects will slowly but surely transition to offsite type developments, as owners realize the extraordinary benefits that modular construction brings to the table.

Gary Badge

Yeah, what Manny is talking about is, they saw a need, the need spoke to them. They've been wanting to do something different for a while, the client happens to be a builder as well and he wants to take this product mainstream. The need is for more affordable housing solutions. That seems to be prevalent nationwide. Now in our own backyard, our mayor said, “By the end of my term, I hope to have 11,000 more housing units developed. We've got this greater need and it's growing every day.” By looking to the modular industry, this particular client said, well there's a way I want to do it and there's a way I've got to sell the idea to the people that I'm working with. He's looking at public private partnerships to get this thing executed. When you're doing that, you got to sell the idea. In order to sell the idea, he's thinking, what are some of the key challenges in modular construction today? We've identified through our discussions that it’s not an infallible process. It has a lot of merit, a lot of promise and people doing it successfully. That's what we're trying to educate everyone on, but there are some inherent things that come up that. The other side argues well I can fix that in a conventional setting. So if you want to make some changes later in life, something happens where something doesn't get aligned where it necessarily needs to be; how can I make that modification without it costing the entire project? Whether it's for the duration or the success and a buildable mess of it.

So what he's done is he said, what about a hybrid solution? Why can't we analyze and develop our partial things that are modules of plug and play and get apart that we can put on trucks, bring to the site and erect with a couple of guys in a couple of weeks. The way that he was seeing it was okay, well, I can deliver one tiny home or two tiny homes, three tiny homes at a clip and I've got to get more trucks to do it. I've got all those logistical concerns, though he's looking at it from a whole solution standpoint. How can I reduce my delivery? I put more units on a single truck at a time, instead of doing a bunch of individual ones. How can I overcome the logistics of this trucking industry, that trucking industry or whoever you're sourcing. So, that became kind of a motivator. I guess in a weird way, we talked about IKEA. You put all your furniture together sort of modular, it's not the best. The way that it comes packaged, the way that you could be delivering it, you can deliver many units at a time instead of one at a time. That’s something that we want to overcome.

So, that's one thing that we're looking at. That's unique because our initial studies were on fully developed module; it was a whole unit, it was an apartment setting. So it wanted to be finished and delivered, and crane, all that. This is different. This is a kit of parts that can be done quickly with the same labor force that they're thinking of using. As I said earlier, labor is an issue, skilled labor is an issue. If you don't have to have a specialty crew putting something together, you've got a better advantage and you're in a better position to build with this type of deliverable. So that's something that I think is prevalent in the discussion that we weren't initially thinking about. It's altering the design to the point where we're looking, how do we then do sub modules? How can we continue to do kitchens and baths? We still don't want to have to be doing a lot of conventional onsite construction. How can we still implement other modular practices, get this thing to work and still unfold? So those challenges, those sets of criteria are setting us up differently for this project type. We’re just scraping the tip of the iceberg now. A lot of people in the industry that we're talking to about, how are they able to help us? Whether they're manufacturers of FF&E or if there's something like the shirt pod. The shirt pod was at the logic conference last week and they're actually here in Orlando. They do those pods of bathrooms and kitchens. It’s just a unique feeling.

Manny Lamarche

So I think what we're learning is that, depending on the market segment, there are certain practices that work better than others. For example, when we started, we started with a farmer and the conversion from onsite to offsite modular technology with a purpose. That seems to be the best approach, but this tiny house component is for a boutique type resort. We'll make this the foundation system, the flash modular components, is more appropriate for that particular market. It was a true hybrid system where about half the building is finalized, then there are components like the master bathroom that will come directly, fully assembled in a factory and it would be just as good.

Gary Badge

As I said, it's not just here in Florida, it's a nationwide issue. As we were talking earlier, you’ve got different geographic regions. It might not even be possible to supply a fully developed module apartment or tiny home because of the terrain, but you could bring a kit of parts up there just as you would conventionally, except you've got the majority of projects already built. Those are the kinds of things that were forward thinking. It's different. It's trying to take what's out there, perfect it and use it in a way that satisfies a lot of challenges.

John McMullen

Well, I think it's a great concept, particularly for affordable housing. That's a theme that's been popping up regularly not only on this podcast, but across the industry. There’s a huge need for affordable housing coast to coast. This sounds like a great solution to help alleviate at least some of it, particularly in Florida and places where I know there's a need. Switching gears just a little bit with this idea that you guys are helping to pioneer and all the other efforts that you guys been making recently, FK has been making quite a splash lately. Your name is out, you've been in our magazine Modular Advantage, this is your second podcast and I heard you did some work with Habitat for Humanity down in Orlando. Congratulations first of all. Second, I've got my fingers crossed, are you guys going to be at World of modular in April?

Gary Badge

Absolutely. We plan on being there and we plan on continuing discussions with the Institute. It's been a great success, lots of networking, and I'm looking forward to it. This past year was interesting with the way it was dealt with COVID, but we got a lot of mileage out of that. I think being in-person is going to be even more successful.

John McMullen

Oh, excellent. I'm glad to hear that.

Gary Badge 

Thanks. I appreciate it.

John McMullen

Well, I just want to thank you guys for your time. It's been a fantastic discussion. I know there's a lot in store in terms of sustainability practices and benefits of modular that have yet to be fully realized by the industry. I appreciate your time today. I hope we can do it again.

Gary Badge

Yeah, it's our pleasure. We love talking.

Manny Lamarche

Thanks again for having us.

John McMullen

My name is John McMullen, and this has been another episode of Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction. Until next time.