icon Blueprint for November

Facing the Facts

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3 min read

“Not everything that is faced can be changed.
But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”  
– James Baldwin

A recent article on the Bisnow East Coast website reported that, according to a survey by the Associated General Contractors of America, “Across the U.S., 43 percent of construction firms reported that their costs had been higher than anticipated due to labor shortages, while 44 percent reported having to lengthen project timelines because of the issue.”

The report also states, “Tariffs imposed on China, Mexico and Germany for construction materials, like steel and lumber, have been in place for some time now and have driven up the price of such goods considerably…but the lack of available labor has been a bigger influence on rising development costs for the past few years.”

Stuck for now with an administration attempting to limit immigrants, who historically make up a large chunk of the construction workforce, and failing to address the opioid crisis, which as you will read in this month’s Talking Heads interview with Cecil Phillips depletes the existing construction workforce, what we are facing is a labor crisis that is not going to be solved for us. So it behooves us as an industry to search for innovative solutions that do not need governmental input.

One solution is to reduce the amount of labor required to construct affordable housing. And one way to reduce the labor is to cut down on construction time by doing a good portion of the building in factories and assembling on site. There are an increasing number of companies in this country who have reached this conclusion and, as a result, an increasing number of examples already constructed or under construction that we can turn to as evidence. And so, in this issue devoted to the costs of construction, we have chosen to face this issue and to focus on those innovating in the area variously referred to as modular or pre-fabricated or offsite construction.

To tee up the conversation, columnist David A. Smith recounts the history of a philosophical feud between architects and engineers that has been an obstacle for such a change in construction norms for over 50 years. (The Guru Is In) And staff writer Mark Olshaker looks at the factors that have motivated these innovations to occur now. (The Offsite Construction Revolution)

Then we look at five different approaches to offsite construction by five separate companies all attempting to reduce costs by reducing labor, each using a slightly different technological innovation from containers built in and shipped from China (Hope on Alvarado) to housing delivered in a box “like furniture from Ikea.”

Together, the stories in this issue might serve as a handbook of new ways to build. We fully expect this revolution to continue and the handbook to grow and look forward to covering all of your innovations as they evolve.

Marty Bell, Editor