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Modular Advantage Magazine

In each bi-monthly issue, Modular Advantage explores a specific modular construction topic and features interviews and articles from industry experts along with news and updates from the Modular Building Institute and its members, modular building case studies, and upcoming industry events. This construction trade magazine is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in commercial modular construction.

Printed copies are free to MBI members and include exclusive content not available anywhere else. The abridged, digital versions of each issue, available below, are available free for everyone.

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Latest Articles & Interviews

Falcon Structures: Thinking Inside the Box

Some of Falcon’s latest projects include creating container solutions for New York’s Central Park and an East Coast professional baseball team. More and more, Falcon is shipping out container bathrooms and locker rooms to improve traditionally difficult work environments, like those in oil and gas or construction.

UrbanBloc—From Passion to Industry Leader

UrbanBloc specializes in three main categories or markets – what they call “Phase 0” projects, amenities, and urban infill. Clients are often attracted to shipping containers because from a real estate perspective they are considered an asset. Having the flexibility to move and transport these assets allows owners to respond to different circumstances in a fluid manner that they can’t get with standard construction.

The Hospitality Game-Changer

“Hospitality is about more than just providing a service – it’s about delivering an experience,” says Anthony Halsch, CEO of ROXBOX. “And that’s where containers thrive. They allow us to create spaces that are unique, efficient, and sustainable.”

Container Conversions Counts on Simplicity to Provide Critical Solutions

Container Conversions has fabricated and developed thousands of containers for varied projects, including rental refrigeration options, offices, kitchens, temporary workplace housing, and mobile health clinics.

Revelution Containers and S. I. Container Builds: On a Mission to Revelutionize Housing

Rory Rubun and Pam Bardhi are on a mission to create more housing. Together, they plan to build shipping container eco communities similar to single-family subdivisions, and mixed-use buildings in urban settings. They also want to expand the footprint of ADUs across the nation.

BMarko Structures – Modular Means Flexible

In an effort to increase sales, Miami’s Bal Harbour Shops devised a unique idea – create a mobile mini version that could travel to other locations and tap into new customer bases. Shipping containers seemed to make the most sense as the backbone for the new mall, but there was certainly an image problem: How to provide a high-end shopping experience using shipping containers?

Mākhers Studio: Tackling Workforce Housing, Local Job Creation, and Sustainable Living— One Container at a Time

With her background as a landscape architect and urban designer, Wanona Satcher launched Mākhers Studio in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, in 2017. The modular design company and manufacturing firm was created by to address the pressing issue of affordable housing.

Training for MBI Members and Beyond

MBI member companies and staff are eligible to access the MBI Learning Center as a benefit of MBI corporate membership.

The How-To Guide For Prefab Leaders: Actively Manage Your Prefab Schedule

By leveraging technology like Offsight to communicate updates to all stakeholders in real time, you can enable collaboration and coordination throughout the project lifecycle.

Strong, Resilient, Sea-Crossing Boxes Repurposed Efficiently As Homes

Shipping containers have been manufactured in excess, to the point that some sit without being used. Creative designers saw that unused product, recognized its strength, resiliency, size and structure, and soon imagined it as a home. Now, in an environment where housing is in critical demand, shipping containers have been used in all types of housing.

Current Issue

From high-end retail to trendy urban developments to critical workforce amenities, shipping containers are being used to create some of the most innovative buildings around. Featuring interviews with some of the industry's leading manufacturers, this issue of Modular Advantage takes a deep dive into the dynamic and quickly-growing world of shipping container structures to see how the industry has evolved and to preview what's next.

Featured Modular Building Case Studies

Castlegar Student Housing, Selkirk College

Modular construction was chosen as the ideal solution to provide high-quality, fast-track affordable housing for students, delivering a 3-storey, 30-module, 114-student bed building with a mass-timber main common
area for student amenities.

Manchester Public Schools Temporary Classroom Space

The buildings can accommodate up to 1,000 students during construction of permanent buildings, allowing education to proceed without interruption. The modern and fully equipped modular learning spaces ensure a smooth transition for both students and staff.

Oldivai on 31st – Modular Housing, Rinse and Repeat

With a “kit-of-parts” approach, Oldivai on 31st demonstrated how a predesigned layout could deliver consistent programming and rapid deployment.

Hawthorn Extended Stay by Wyndham—Jackson, WY

The plan was to build the project in two phases. This would enable the property to open sooner and start
accommodating guests while completing the second phase. The digital twin was designed to provide a complete factory-ready model for both phases upfront. That gave the factory everything it needed to bring each phase into production quickly. It also enabled everyone a way to plan both
phases ahead of time, and begin prepping the site in advance.

102-108 Westford Street

102-108 Westford was an opportunity for New England-based GreenStaxx to show how project costs could be trimmed by using a standardized, modular-ready Triple Decker design.

Geberit In-Wall Systems Makes a New Breed Luxury Room Concept a Reality for International Hotel Brand

Geberit in-wall flush toilet systems for wall-hung toilets are the classics for modern bathroom design. citizenM has specified the Geberit systems into their bathroom walls worldwide as a basis of their bathroom design. This installation is part of the over one million times building owners have installed Geberit systems in their buildings around the globe for over the past 50 years.

Panel Built Provides Custom Modular Enclosure for Major Beverage Manufacturer

The challenge was twofold. Firstly, Panel Built needed to create a spacious enclosure that could accommodate a large facility crane. This enclosure required a design that provided ample storage space and integrated seamlessly with the existing infrastructure. Secondly, the structure needed to incorporate office space that offered personnel an unimpeded, 360-degree view of the factory floor.

Fire Station 67

Fire Station 67 is designed in direct response to the climate crisis, the increasing threat of wildfires, and the needs to the Rancho Mission Viejo community. Prefabricated off-site and assembled from 10 modules, the 4,667-square-foot fire station is a modular design with the ability to reconfigure the structure into something new in the future.

Maceo May

Maceo May is a six-story, all-electric modular construction, affordable housing development located on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The climate-responsive design provides 104 homes for formerly homeless veterans and their families with a strong focus on decarbonization, resilience and wellness. The apartment building offers 1 on-site manager’s unit, and a mix of 24 studio, 47 one-bedroom and 34 two-bedroom units.

The Sphere Made Possible with Exterior Wall Panels

This one-of-a-kind structure required one-of-a-kind building materials and exterior cladding that could accommodate the atypical geometries, project timelines, and significant daily foot traffic. Offsite construction, in the form of Dryvit’s Outsulite prefabricated panels of continuous insulation (CI), was the key method for streamlining the façade installation and ensuring quality control for the difficult building connections.

Modular Construction for Financial Viability: The Norwalk Project Case Study

The Norwalk project serves as a prime example of how Offsite Modular Construction, in collaboration with Architects, Consultants/Engineers, General Contractors (GC), and Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Fire Protection (MEP/FP) Subcontractors, can make projects financially feasible by closely working with the Owner/Developer under an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach.

STAAT MOD Patient Bed Expansion at M Health Fairview – St. John’s Hospital

Construction firm The Boldt Company, and interdisciplinary design firm, HGA were engaged by St. John’s Hospital to deliver a 16-bed ICU patient observation wing onto the existing facility, built to over 90 percent completion offsite in Appleton, Wisc., then seamlessly transported and installed on the St. John’s campus – the first of its kind in the state of Minnesota.

Offsite Modular Construction Builds and Installs 12 New Classrooms for Westlake Academy in 100 Days

OMC utilized modular construction techniques to manufacture two brand new permanent 6,400-square-foot modular buildings, each housing six classrooms. The process included innovative design features for safety, durability, environmental sustainability, integrated technology enhancements, and health-oriented construction.

Formula 1 Race, Las Vegas, Nevada

In partnership with InProduction, Phoenix Modular Elevator (PME) designed, manufactured, and installed seven modular elevators for the F1 Grand Prix race in Las Vegas, Nevada. To minimize space, the design utilized machine roomless (MRL) hydraulic elevators, eliminating the need for separate machine rooms for each elevator. Instead, using the MRL design, the machine room equipment is built into the hoistway, and accessed via a small door on the side.

Silverking Student Housing, Selkirk College

ROC Modular was proud to deliver a much-needed new permanent modular Student Housing Residence for Selkirk College, located at the Silverking Campus in Nelson BC. The project is a 3-storey, 12-module 38-student bed building with a mass-timber main common area for student amenities.

Parkhurst Elementary School Classroom Additions

The Parkhurst Elementary School in Winchester, MA, has recently undergone an expansion of 13,074 square feet. Due to renovations at the neighboring Lynch School, students were temporarily relocated to Parkhurst. Modular construction was chosen as the preferred method to accommodate the influx of students and prepare for the start of the 2023-2024 school year.

VBC Chooses MAESTRO SMART 9 HP

Volumetric Building Companies (VBC), a global leader in the construction sector with a focus on building the future through volumetric modular techniques, choose the Maestro Smart 9 Heat Pump as their ideal comfort solution to heat and cool their modular housing project in Philadelphia, PA, consisting of 60 modular housing units.

16’ x 37’ Welded Substation Enclosure

Instead of sourcing a new transformer, which would have taken over 100 weeks and cost several million dollars, Raytheon Technologies turned to Panel Built Inc. for a modular solution. Panel Built designed a 16’ x 37’ prefabricated enclosure that could be delivered to Guam in two pieces. Once it was put together, it was lowered over the transformer.

Temporary Visitors Center at Antietam National Battlefield Park

Antietam National Battlefield Park, a revered site listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, presented unique challenges demanding meticulous preservation efforts. The paramount goal was to ensure minimal disruption to the sacred grounds surrounding the new modular building.

Wraptite Airtightness Protection for Northampton School for Boys

The Wraptite external air barrier system from the A. Proctor Group has been chosen for its high-performance, airtight insulation for a Department for Education (DfE) funded project of the offsite construction of Northampton School for Boys Multi-Academy Trust.

Online Exclusives

Recent Issues

November/December 2024
September/October 2024
July/August 2024
May/June 2024
March/April 2024

Past Articles

MODLOGIQ builds a modular hospital at its offsite manufacturing facility

Customized & Complex: Inside the Construction of the Nation’s Largest Modular Hospital

With about 100,000 square feet of space on four levels, MODLOGIQ is producing 100% of the hospital’s space off-site in their factory. That includes everything from mechanical, electrical, and plumbing to interior finishes and casework to about an 85% level of completion.

ReMo Homes exhibited its net-zero modular home in Washington DC

Revisiting Remo Home and Its Modular Housing Revolution

ReMo Homes founder Vamsi Kumar Kotla has an ambitious goal: assemble a net zero, single-family home with a minimized carbon footprint in just one hour. Surprisingly, his team is close to making his goal a reality. They recently assembled a 400 square foot net zero model home on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Assembly took ten days.

Rendering of Starwood Capital's modular Treehouse Hotel

FullStack Modular’s Bicoastal Moves Are Making Waves

FullStack Modular’s dedication to sustainability and process yielded their
latest project for its new Portland, OR, factory: a sustainable Treehouse Hotel for Starwood Capital Group in Sunnyvale, California. The six-story Treehouse Hotel features 200 modules and 143 rooms.

A robot programmed by House of Design assembles a truss for a modular building

Dynamic Automation Helps Company Create “Snowflakes”

House of Design, located in Nampa, Idaho, provides a unique solution to building trusses, walls, and other building assemblies: they call it dynamic automation. Shane Dittrich, CEO, explained the term as “the robots have no idea what they’re building today.”

Drawings showing the size, shape, and interior structure of ModCribs modulr cribbing units

ModCribs Are A Better Way

Matt Mitchell and Scott Bridger took note of the cribbing other people were using. “We said, it doesn’t seem like anybody’s really working on a better solution to try to fix this,” Bridger said. Then, about four years ago, they decided to see what they could come up with. “That’s when we really in earnest decided to see if we can design and manufacture something that’s just better,” Mitchell said.

Nick Ververis, principal, OneDigital insurance

Former Modular Owner, Now Principal Insurance Executive, Helps Modular Company Owners Navigate Insurance

Ververis doesn’t just work for anybody in the modular industry. “I need to know that they’re fully committed and willing to use best practices. I can assist with putting together a great risk management program and make them close to bulletproof, but they have to be willing to implement and manage the procedures.”

RainStick can reduce water consumption by almost a swimming pool's worth over the course of a year.

RainStick: The Art of Sustainable Showering

A recently developed product promises to provide homeowners with major savings in both energy and water. It’s called RainStick, and one of its founders says users can reduce their water consumption by almost a swimming pool’s worth over the course of a year. With a payback period of just over five years, modular builders focused on sustainability are taking note.

Anirban Basu, CEO of Sage Policy Group and Chief Economist of the Modular Building Institute

Now for 2024, by Anirban Basu

Anirban Basu, Chairman & CEO of Sage Policy Group and Chief Economist of the Modular Building Institute, looks back at the financial trends of 2023 and forward to 2024

A group of Nadler Modular employees

A Case for Prioritizing Human Capital

Nadler Modular discusses the loyalty and value/service to their employees and customers, that has led to their continued growth and success.

Share Your Story

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