At the same time, COVID also led to a surge of interest in do-it-yourself (DIY) home renovation projects, online shopping, and eco-friendly/germ-terminating products within the paint and sealant sectors.

Both sectors, but particularly the paint market, are huge. The U.S. paint and coatings sector employed over 300,000 people in 2021, with roughly 42,000 directly working in paint and coating manufacturing, according to the ACA. That same year, product shipments from paint and coating producers reached nearly $30 billion.

“Architectural coatings”—that is, paints and coatings used both indoors and outdoors on commercial and residential buildings—represent the largest portion of the industry. Applied on everything from drywall to brick, wood, concrete block, metal, stucco, and beyond, such paints account for half the value and 60 percent of the volume of the U.S. paint/coatings market.

“The total volume of architectural coatings is estimated at approximately 900 million gallons for 2021. Roughly two-thirds of the total volume is applied in interior spaces and waterborne latex is the dominant technology. About 85 percent of the interior coatings are waterborne,” states the ACA.

Prior to COVID, professional painters handled roughly 60 to 65 percent of painting jobs in the U.S., states the ACA. When the virus hit, offices and commercial and recreational sites went into lockdown mode, and painters found themselves shut out of work. To an extent, homebound consumers coping with the same lockdowns picked up the slack. “Paint applications by DIYers increased in 2020 to an approximately 44 percent share,” notes the ACA.

And DIYers embarking on home renovation projects weren’t always buying their paint in-person. “The pandemic has accelerated the incorporation of online shopping for architectural paint… Homeowners are now able to start a project from the comfort of their home online, then visit the local paint store to pick up their paint and supplies from their online order,” stated Daniel Claybaugh, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Kelly-Moore Paints, in an industry roundtable hosted by CoatingsTech Magazine, an ACA journal.

Online paint sales are still dwarfed by sales at brick-and-mortar retail locations, but continue to grow each year, adds Claybaugh.

During the same roundtable discussion, Kyle Mooney, Product Management Director for Architectural Coatings for PPG, noted that professional painters (whose services began rising in demand in 2021, said the ACA), have also recognized the utility of online shopping. “In the next three years it is estimated that professional painters will make more than half of their purchases online, seeking faster, more cost-effective ways to purchase products,” stated Mooney, citing a study by PPG and a research firm.

For professionals, buying paint and related products online streamlines the purchase process while saving valuable time.

The paint and coatings industry has also responded to growing concerns about health and the spread of germs. “Another outcome of COVID is the increased demand for antimicrobial coatings,” notes The Farnsworth Group, a research firm in Indianapolis, Indiana.

While not a new concept, antibacterial and antimicrobial paint is ideally suited for an environment in which disease prevention has taken on a new urgency.

The Behr paint company, for example, has introduced Behr Copper Force Paint, which was tested and registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Copper Force Paint can kill a variety of viruses and bacteria “within two hours of contact on the painted surface” and its effect lasts for years if the paint is properly applied, according to Behr literature.

Viruses and bacteria targeted by Copper Force Paint include SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for causing COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Staphylococcus aureus (commonly known as Staph), and human noroviruses. That said, Behr’s bacteria-killing paint should only be used on walls, trim, ceilings, and doors, and not on floors, outdoor spaces, or “any portion of an operating room, which undergoes more stringent cleaning protocols,” notes the company.

In a similar fashion, paint manufacturers are embracing “green” products derived from plants, with minimal VOC content. Within the paint and coatings industry, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are commonly used as thinners or solvents to enhance the properties of resin for better performance, durability, and appearance. VOCs are also pollutants, however, that are not good for the environment.

“Most waterborne paint resins are derivatives of petroleum and natural gas,” noted Derek Ward, Vice President of Operations for Farrell-Calhoun Paints, during the CoatingsTech roundtable. Bio-paints are continuing to enter the market, however, and Ward noted the presence of “waterborne alkyd emulsions based on oils such as soybean that are derived from a renewable source and are used in some trim enamels.”

The Royal DSM company has also been a leader on the bio-based/low-VOC front. Up to half of the company’s Decovery resin (launched prior to COVID) contains “plant-based content, such as seeds, tree bark, corn, and castor beans,” reported a July 2018 article in Coatings World magazine. This bio-based resin has a carbon footprint one third smaller than its oil-based acrylic resin counterpart, while offering equally good performance and negligible VOCs.

COVID had another interesting impact as well—on interior design choices.

“During difficult inflection points throughout history, we often see consumers gravitate toward more colourful selections, as previously seen during the Roaring Twenties or after the Great Depression. As part of this cyclical history, PPG is seeing a post-pandemic optimism start to infiltrate residential design spaces to create a sense of escapism. Just as trends in the 1920s were marked by opulence, metallics, rich woods, layers, moody colours, and angular shapes, today’s home décor is drawing inspiration from the Antiquity, Baroque, and Renaissance eras of art, sculpture and architectural forms,” said Mooney in the industry roundtable.

The sealant market has also been coping with COVID, among other issues.

Sealants are used to create a barrier to prevent water, chemicals, dust, or dirt from seeping into a wall, window, or other space. There are multiple varieties of sealant, including acrylic, oil-based, polysulfide, butyl, silicone, polyurethane, and more. At present, the sealant and adhesive industry in North America is worth $22 billion and employs nearly 30,000 people, states the Adhesive and Sealant Council (ASC).

“Adhesives and sealants are used in every major market for their versatility, cost-effectiveness, product design flexibility, and incredible strength and durability,” notes the ACS, a non-profit group founded in 1958. These markets include the transportation, consumer/DIY, construction, and assembly sectors.

At the peak of the COVID crisis, trade publication Adhesives & Sealants Industry questioned industry experts about the state of the sector (just like CoatingsTech did). Participants expressed concerns about raw material shortages, supply chain woes, and rises in shipping costs. Their views were published by the magazine in early 2022.

Pundits noted that demand for sealants collapsed in North America in the first half of 2020, then sprang back to life, propelled by consumers (doing home renovations and such). However, there wasn’t enough sealant supply to meet the surge in demand.

Challenges with logistics wreaked havoc on delivery schedules and lengthened lead times, particularly on materials shipped across the Pacific Ocean: “Nearly 40 percent of the world’s chemicals are sourced from China, and most companies in the adhesives and sealant industry are being impacted to some degree,” said Rob Hubbard, Vice President Global Strategic Sourcing for H.B. Fuller.

Silicone sealants were “the most affected material” as “the capacities are highly concentrated in Asia,” added Bjorn Neal Kirchner, Corporate Vice President Global Supply Chain for Henkel Adhesive Technologies.

“The tightness in raw materials has impacted pretty much every end-use sector in adhesives and sealants. The challenges in logistics, port congestion, and driver shortages have impacted us all,” voiced a third roundtable participant, Julie Vaughn, Global Business Development Director for Emerald Kalama Chemical, LLC, now part of Lanxess. In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri crippled much of Texas, and a few months later, Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana and other areas. Petrochemical facilities in these states were battered, which in turn disrupted the sealant industry.

Like their counterparts in the paint and coatings industry, sealant companies are also looking for eco-friendly alternatives. To this end, DOW Chemical offers a product line of carbon-neutral silicones “for more sustainable building façades.” Products in the company’s carbon-neutral DOWSIL sealant line are used for insulating glass, weather sealing, and structural glazing.

The company also launched “the first-ever carbon-neutrality service—available for silicones used in structural glazing, insulating glass, and weather sealing applications on high-performance building facades,” as DOW literature puts it.

Building designers or architects can arrange to have the company apply its Dow Carbon-Neutral Silicone Service for Building Façades on projects that incorporate carbon-neutral silicones from Dow. The service entails Life Cycle Analyses, external CO₂ audits, and Environmental Product Declarations for the growing number of firms interested in going green—just one more way this evolving industry continues to shake things up.

The post Trends and Transitions<p class="company">How the Paint and Sealant Sectors Respond to Changing Times</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

“Designers really needed more options and sophisticated acoustical solutions. So she took all of that information and built the company from the ground up.” O’Toole’s approach resonated with the market, and the Dallas-based company grew steadily over the next three decades.

Today, AEC employs nearly 100 people and has expanded its offerings beyond its original focus. “We do a lot more than just acoustical products now,” says Durham. From window treatments and banquettes to upholstered solutions and lighting elements, the team delivers a complete solution.

AEC remains woman-owned, with O’Toole currently at the helm as Chief Executive Officer, a fact that makes the company stand out within the construction industry. “Many women in our industry don’t have the same opportunities that we are afforded here at AEC,” Durham says. “We know that it’s a very male-dominated industry, and that is a big part of the experience for so many females trying to build a successful career in construction. It’s the way it has always been, but thankfully, we are starting to see that change.”

Barbara O’Toole may not have set out to be a trailblazer, but she became one nonetheless. “She didn’t start off thinking that she was going to be a good example for women, of someone breaking barriers and paving their own way, but I think that women do look up to her because she has accomplished so much, myself included,” Durham says. “Without her knowing it, she is helping the women in our industry to know that you can do anything you want to. You just have to work hard and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.”

When it comes to running the company, however, O’Toole and Durham prefer a different focus. “It’s such a hot topic, women in construction and women in the industry and women in general,” Durham says, “but Barbara would agree with me when I say this—we both prefer to focus on the way it impacts our business, which has more to do with what kind of person you are rather than gender. We care more—have always cared more—about the type of people [who work at AEC]. Are you a good human being? Are you a hard worker? Do you care? Are you creative? Are you self-aware?”

The AEC team works hard to educate the industry in order to bridge the gap between acoustics, construction, and design. “I think what makes us unique is that we try to make what we do accessible to a lot of people,” Durham explains. “We try to be a resource for designers and a resource for general contractors. Anybody who has questions [can] call us. “We really try very hard to make it easy for people to work with us,” she says.

“We try to help them realize that it doesn’t have to be complicated,” she continues. “You can do an acoustical treatment on any project and still achieve a beautiful aesthetic, be within budget, and be super creative.”

The team’s close relationships with other industry insiders helps make this approach possible. “More often than not, architects and designers don’t have a relationship with the trade partners,” says Architectural Sales and Marketing Manager, Stephanie Isaacson. “So for a subcontractor to have direct relationships with designers, where we are making the effort to be a resource for them, I think that’s what makes us unique. Now, when they are thinking about how to construct a complicated design or they need help suggesting alternates that are within the client’s budget, they have access to an experienced trade partner who can answer their questions and get them the help they need quickly.”

“We’re not afraid to help educate people,” Durham adds. “Some people want to hold the knowledge in and not share it, but we’d rather educate you so the next time it’s that much easier to work together.”

While the company completes plenty of standard “plug and play” jobs, it should not come as a surprise that AEC’s approach has led to a lot of unique projects—including ones that fall outside the realm of acoustics. “We get asked to do things like hang 4,000 #2 pencils from a ceiling or create hundreds of paper airplanes with employees’ faces on them,” Durham recalls. These tasks are more complicated than they might appear. Take the out-of-the-box pencil project at Uplift Education, for example. “With hanging pencils, you would think, well, just attach the pencil to the ceiling. What’s so hard about that?” Plenty, as it turned out. The ceiling height was very low, and every pencil had to line up perfectly both horizontally and vertically. “They needed to match all the way through,” she remembers. Achieving this while working within an imperfect ceiling surface meant overcoming several challenges.

The team’s creative solution was to attach an eraser head to the end of each pencil that fit into a specially made, acrylic grid. “We glued those to the end and dropped them through a perforated grid that allowed the pencil to perfectly line up,” Durham explains. “And then if the breeze blew or someone accidentally touched the pencil, it gave enough sway that they wouldn’t break, but then it also allowed it to line right back up with the other pencils. So, a small detail turned into something that really needed to be engineered and thought through.”

In another unique project, North Texas PGA envisioned hundreds of golf balls with members’ names printed on them, mounted onto a wall. “So, you think, we’ll just attach them to the wall,” Durham says. But, “they also required these to be interchangeable so that names could be added and removed as needed, and we had to engineer a solution for that.” Further complicating the project, every name had to line up perfectly with one another. Mum’s the word on the proprietary solution the team developed, but, “I will tell you that it involved using CNC machines and 3D printing,” Durham shares.

Applying their imaginative and resourceful approach, the team members have created everything from string art to elaborate banquettes to a decorative bull’s head. “We were approached about doing a bronzed bull’s head. As a team, we collaborated on creative solutions and arrived at a faux bronze finish, instead of an actual metal bronze head. One of our talented team members used her artistic skills to help us achieve that.”

This can-do attitude and collaborative approach has made AEC successful far beyond the acoustical market. In fact, the company launched a specialty division in response to being asked to take on tough projects with problems that no one else was willing—or able—to solve. The staff at AEC “have such creative minds and diverse backgrounds that we were continuously stretching the boundaries and trying new things, which is when you start to realize your full capabilities. So we created an entire division for specialty projects,” says Isaacson, because “we became to the go-to contractor when someone asked, ‘who is going to build this or create this?’”

Looking ahead, the team is eager to keep moving along the same creative, problem-solving path that has already brought so much success. “We want to continue to grow and be one of the best specialty subcontractors in [Dallas-Fort Worth],” says Durham. “Yes, we’re a subcontractor, but we want to be more than that. We want to continue to grow and offer custom solutions. Our goal is to diversify even further, into various markets, and be a go-to solution for people. If you ask yourself, ‘Who’s going to do this?’ we want you to immediately think, AEC can do it!”

The post Bridging the Gap Between Acoustics, Construction, and Design<p class="company">AEC</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

For 46 years, BOKA Powell has committed to designing spaces that exhibit exceptional design and function while satisfying the vision of their clients. BOKA Powell’s mission is, “To fulfill the dreams of our clients, employees, collaborators, and communities. We listen intently, design creatively, and celebrate life.” Their mission is directly reflected in their culture and each one of their projects.

Dream fulfillment
Listening is an essential element of the design process for BOKA Powell, as Senior Associate and Senior Interior Project Designer, Melanie Hanna, notes. “As an interior designer, listening and understanding our clients’ needs is the biggest driver for inspiring the stories we tell through design.” What she refers to as storytelling sets a tone for how each space in a building is carefully designed with purpose top of mind. Understanding the client’s brand, their why, how they work, where they work, who they work with, creates a space that tells a story of the client from not only a design, but an operational standpoint as well.

What do they hear their clients saying? “Since the pandemic, we’ve noticed a shift in the workplace to include an abundance of amenities, to not only entice the employee back to the workplace, but to give them a sense of being at home,” notes Principal R. Andrew Bennett. Understanding this shift in work-life balance has been pivotal in BOKA Powell’s continued success, which is why the company is dedicated to designing spaces where life and work can coexist and thrive.

Ability to pivot
It is no secret that the pandemic significantly impacted the corporate workplace, which has been one good reason for BOKA Powell to pivot. Empty buildings are not only impacting clients but also local economies across the United States. “The workplace is struggling in our market. It’s the same in San Francisco, New York, and Denver: really struggling. Empty buildings are affecting restaurants, street life, the energy of the city. It’s a bit better in Texas, but it’s still hard to get large new projects going in the workplace sector, so we’ve been pivoting,” says Bennett, who highlights opportunities in hospitality, multifamily, residential, and conversions.

“We’re seeing a lot of corporate high-rise capital improvement projects right now,” says Hanna. “Building Owners are renovating lobbies to provide end users a fresh first impression and to provide updated amenities. Hospitality has always been at the core of corporate workplace; however, now there is an emphasis on hospitality with the use of higher end finishes, layered materiality and lighting, and addition of private clubs and restaurants for tenants and the community. To better serve their clients, 8080, a BOKA Powell Studio, was formed to cater to luxury hospitality brands, full-service hotels, high-end restaurants, and other hospitality-focused interiors projects regionally and nationwide.

“As a full-service design firm, we provide architecture, interior design, graphics, and myriad creative services. 8080, a BOKA Powell Studio, is a collective of experience-driven curious creators,” says Hanna.

Jessica Rosales, Associate/8080 Hospitality Team Lead, states, “8080 is passionate about creating unique luxury and lifestyle spaces.”

Kaky Gown and Dan Doyle, Senior Associates/8080 Hospitality Team Leads, continue, “Our team’s process and drive set us apart from our competitors.”

Projects like the Bowie House Hotel – Auberge Resorts Collection in Fort Worth, Texas; Surf & Sand Resort in Laguna Beach, CA; and Waterloo Park Hotel – Hilton Curio Collection in Austin, Texas demonstrate that BOKA Powell and 8080 are leading the market on exquisite projects across Texas and beyond.

It’s all about relationships
Based in Texas with offices in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Denver, Colorado and licensed in 36 states, BOKA Powell’s long-term relationships have taken them across the United States and even around the world. And, while these markets keep the team busy, the sky is the limit thanks to the technology and innovation they bring to every task.

Through the spaces they create, BOKA Powell crafts an unmatched experience for their clients as well as their own employees. Because relationships and partnerships are a core part of their identity, fostering these relationships is paramount. One of the best ways this is reflected is in BOKA Powell’s company culture. “Our best asset is our people,” says Hanna. “Our culture promotes a spirit of collaboration and innovation. If our people are happy and they know that they’re valued and having fun, that’s what it’s all about.” If you take care of your people, they’ll take care of your clients.”

Bennett agrees. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take our work very seriously. We have a lot of fun. The fun takes some of the edge off of doing some serious work and then clients become friends and become repeat clients.”

The best people, a vibrant culture, and an environment where technology, innovation, and creativity meet, have set the stage for projects that push the limits to bring clients’ stories to life and bring life to the spaces they call home. BOKA Powell is committed to being on the forefront of market trends, continuous learning, mentoring, and growth to guarantee they remain a leading player and a trusted partner for their clients—and always, a leader in the design space.

The post From Concept to Creation: Crafting a Client’s Design Vision into Reality<p class="company">BOKA Powell</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

But this company does more than just please aesthetically; it also embraces sustainable practices by understanding that architecture and construction are two fields where eco-friendly methods can make a big difference. By utilizing recycled and environmentally friendly materials instead of traditional building methods that often rely on resource-intensive materials that produce much waste and pollution, sustainable design promotes the use of reclaimed wood, and recycled steel and concrete.

CarbonShack, the sister company of Home Front Build, was founded 20 years ago in support of historic preservation, restoring homes to their previous beauty and glory. During restoration, if the home was being renovated and remodeled and architectural pieces were being removed, Home Front Build would often store them. Over the years, the company built up a collection of old doors, windows, floorboards, and studs from homes that were built 100 or more years ago with lumber that’s no longer available commercially.

“There was a great wealth of the materiality of those elements that we collected, so at a certain point we realized it would be so much better for the environment and economically feasible to re-use those elements in remodeling some of these homes,” says Greg Roth, senior interior designer.

“If a client wanted a new addition put on a home, we were able to use those salvaged studs or doors and windows that were originally harvested from forests over 100 years ago and put those into an older home being remodeled.”

This means the company was not creating new carbon footprints from hauling lumber from afar or having new materials crafted and fabricated, says Roth. “We’re making use of materials that were already in the marketplace and the carbon footprint which had already been established.”

That was the concept behind the question of whether it was possible to build carbon-neutral homes, Roth adds. The company’s first project in 2016 was called Casa Zero, a deep exploration into what it would look like to build a home with zero carbon footprint and use as little new construction material as possible in the building and furnishing while incorporating low-carbon methodologies both in the operational carbon footprint and in the fabrication.

Additionally, Home Front Build has also developed home furnishing lines, including tile, fabrics, and lighting, with all products designed in Los Angeles and produced and fabricated by local artisans wherever possible.

“We strive to source all materials within about a 300-mile radius or so, which includes furniture we have built using urban forest lumber,” Roth says. “We work with a couple of vendors locally who harvest trees that have fallen or need to be taken down within the city of Los Angeles rather than going to a forest outside of the city. We reuse that lumber and craft it into furniture, and also use it in the homes we’re remodeling if people want cabinetry or countertops made from them. So that’s pretty exciting.”

In keeping with that mandate, when the city recently required a street widened in front of the project property that necessitated the felling of an old sugar pine, Home Front Build had it milled and made into furniture.

“Another thing I’m very excited about is our fabrics. We work with hemp as a main fiber content as the textile is less water-intensive in its growth, production, and fabrication than any other commercially available fiber,” says Roth.

“People are excited when they can use organic cotton,” he adds, “which is great, but cotton uses a tremendous amount of water in growing, harvesting, and processing, while hemp uses a fraction of that.”

Hemp, he adds, is also very versatile, naturally resistant to mildew, UV, and bacteria, and can be woven into a tremendous variety of textures. “We print our bespoke designs on hemp which we sell through the showroom we have here at the office.”

However, Home Front Build is not only focused on sustainability. Aesthetically, its brands take a lot of inspiration from the natural world, such as fabric prints of microscopic imagery of mycelium, the network of tentacles and roots of fungi that runs through the soil of the forest and connects the different plants.

“We’re big on using nature as inspiration for aesthetic design choices,” Roth says. “Not only is some of this imagery incredibly beautiful, it’s a way of bringing nature into the home and further reinforcing and reminding consumers and homeowners that we’re all connected to nature. We’re big advocates of keeping that in mind as a way of inspiring collective responsibility and action.”

Another nod to the company’s commitment to sustainability is its use of reclaimed sea plastics in its furniture designs by way of Los Angeles-based ByFusion Global Inc., which salvages plastics from the land and the ocean that are then shredded and compressed into dense blocks.

“They’re construction-grade, and can be used in any sort of structure,” Roth explains. “They’re solid, structurally sound, and beautiful. The company does some good in the world by taking waste out of the oceans and land and putting it into something useful. We thought, what if we developed another use for that and design some furniture?”

Home Front Build worked with ByFusion and a local fabricator to come up with a line of chairs and tables and is developing other pieces as well.

“We maintain that sort of simple integrity of the building block, and the seats have an optional cushion on them,” he says. “They’re suitable for indoors and outdoors and they’re very sturdy and quite heavy… they certainly have presence, and from our perspective, they’re like art pieces. They’re quite modern in that sensibility, plus they do good for the world. So we love that.”

The industry at large, he notes, is a tremendous producer of waste and pollution, so there’s a lot of opportunity as a company to make a difference in the world in terms of global warming, pollution, and consumption and waste.

“Because we have that responsibility and opportunity, we take it very seriously, and we want to be thought leaders and industry leaders,” Roth says. “We want to encourage and inspire consumers to be responsible shepherds of the environment, even in their decisions about their home design and interior design.”

The goal, he continues, is to bring the sensibility to home design and interior design that doing good can look good—and that everybody should consider it.

“That doesn’t mean everybody must do everything sustainable in their home,” he says. “That’s a big ask. Certainly, if you’re up for it, do it. But even for something like recovering a chair or stool, why not choose a fabric that doesn’t harm the environment? Even that small decision has an impact, so we’re looking for opportunities for people to take on those responsibilities and the role of helping out the Earth. We’re providing a lot of opportunities for that.”

And people are interested. The topic of sustainability isn’t going away and comes up regularly in panel discussions and online articles.

“I think consumers are interested in knowing how they can make decisions that are healthy for them, their families, and the planet,” says Roth. “Does that mean everybody’s running toward it with open arms? Not necessarily. There are some costs and learning curves involved.”

There is also some pushback, as there often is with any technology that’s new and generally requires extra cost, so people are often reluctant to openly embrace it. “When we find people willing to take the risks and who are open to being pushed a little bit, then it makes a lot of sense, and people come around,” Roth says.

He adds that Home Front Build is also an advocate of electric induction ranges and cooktops in homes rather than gas and fossil fuel.

“Gas-burning stoves are a tremendous polluter inside the home,” Roth says. “There’s a very clean way of cooking that’s better for the environment, and there’s a range of opportunity for consumers.”

While the gas industry has done a tremendously good job, he adds, of “romanticizing the blue flame of gas”—making it harder to leave that and jump onto the electric induction cooktop bandwagon—people are coming around and communities and regulations are shifting in that direction as well.

Natural resistance to embracing new technology among consumers and contractors is just one of the challenges Home Front Build has been up against. But Roth adds that there’s now a groundswell in the home construction and interior design industry toward sustainability and responsibility, and the stewardship of the Earth and its resources.

“Given global warming and the intensification of the effects of the changing climate, I don’t feel like these movements are going away,” he says. “There’s an opportunity for people to shift their thinking about the way homes are built and the way we use homes and the material finishes we choose for them. Whether you’re in California, Canada, or Europe, the world is changing. Global warming is happening and it’s 100 percent affecting the way we live in our homes.”

Whether it means improving insulation or putting in double-glazed windows, there are ways to address this in design and construction that require attention. “It’s a challenge we all need to step up to.”

Home Front Build continues to step up by promoting the importance of sustainability, recently hosting a panel event at its showroom and co-hosting two other events at the Pacific Design Center that focused on how the industry can address waste, and what designers, architects, fabricators, builders, and suppliers can do to make the world and their industries better for everybody.

“We look at this process holistically; it’s not simply, ‘we’re going to put steel into this house,’ but rather, ‘what is the full life or the carbon footprint of the cycle of that steel or wood or glass?’” Roth says. “We work to minimize the carbon footprint, but we take it a step further.”

Home Front Build also provides consumers or homeowners with every service needed, from initial concept and working with the city for permitting and architectural drawings to interior design, installation, landscaping, and providing and designing products they need as well.

“We’re carrying over that notion of sustainability by offering all we can in our services and consultation on sustainable use of the home and the footprint of the home, and the architectural and interior design products for the home,” says Roth.

The company also provides a tool with a calculator that anyone can use to input information on their building and establish both their current and projected carbon footprints.

“We’re trying to offer not just the services, not just the product, but also the information,” Roth says. “I think that sets us apart from a lot of other design and design-build firms. We’re looking at it holistically. We’re engaging and we’re striving to educate.”

The post Past Perfected<p class="company">CarbonShack</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Crafting complete elevator cabs and custom elevator interiors—whether for a new construction project or a renovation—Eklund’s has developed a unique, wide range of elevator cab solutions to meet performance and budget requirements, and, most strikingly, aesthetic considerations.

The company was founded by James (Jim) Eklund in Grapevine, Texas in 1983. Eklund had spent his entire career in the elevator cab and entry industry before starting the company. Embracing his belief that all products could be improved, Eklund’s has since emerged as the market leader for customized elevator cabs.

A family business to this day, Eklund’s daughter Beth Cunningham joined the expanding business in 1984 as Vice President of Sales and is President today, while Beth’s son and nephew, Heath Cunningham and Joseph Eklund, both hold executive positions.

With a corporate office in Dallas-Fort Worth and a manufacturing facility in Maryland, Eklund’s has brought its expertise to unique elevator cab solutions that satisfy all client needs.

“The Eklunds identified a gap in custom elevator cabs, so Jim started the company with the priority of making a superior elevator cab product and tailor-made cab interiors,” explains Shelby Tidmore, Marketing Coordinator.

Jim Eklund’s specialization—and genius—was in turning elevator interiors into practical, aesthetically beautiful, and safe realities by collaborating with architects, elevator consultants, elevator contractors, general contractors, and building owners.

Today, Eklund’s design, production, and installation of unique elevator cabs and interiors are all included in its comprehensive elevator cab solutions, complete with innovative engineering and design concepts, strict safety compliance, and a wide range of material options. Projects range from remodeling current cabs to building custom glass observation cabs and elaborate interiors for new structures. The company’s clients stretch from coast to coast, but wherever they are, they can experiment with cab layouts and finishes via the company’s virtual design tool, the StreamLine Cab Design Studio.

This tool dramatically shortens the design cycle, speeds up manufacturing, and reduces costs for customers. Eklund’s expert designers employ cutting-edge manufacturing processes with durable, functional materials that adhere to the strictest codes, safety, and quality standards.

With Business Development Representatives working throughout the country, Eklund’s has continued to expand its customer base and grow its staff, manufacturing capacity, and capabilities since its founding in 1983. The company’s projects span hospitality, medical/health care, commercial offices, government/justice, multi-unit residential, airports, civic/cultural, education (colleges and universities), entertainment, and retail, all the while maintaining its strong family dynamic.

Celebrations for the impressive 40^th anniversary included a company picnic for the team. “We’ve done great business in the past couple of years; we appreciate the team, and have an upcoming employee and customer appreciation party,” shares Tidmore.

Eklund’s business model—which embraces designing tailor-made cabs ranging from basic garage cabs up to observation passenger cabs overlooking downtown Dallas, and a large corporate office building in Chicago, a huge project that Eklund’s is particularly proud of—starts with initially meeting with a client and understanding their vision for what they want, says Tidmore.

Eklund’s StreamLine Cab Design Studio lets clients visit the website and “play around” with different materials and finishes to make their own cab. From there, Eklund’s can create something fully tailor-made, providing an inspired answer to the customer’s needs.

“The sky is pretty much the limit,” she says. “We can go anywhere, from using Italian stone to laminate and vinyl—all different sorts of elements.”

Other notable projects include corporate offices, buildings, and hotels all over the country. “We’ve done a lot of notable buildings, and although a lot of people I meet don’t think about cab interiors or the process, everyone realizes that there’s a special company that makes them,” Tidmore says—proof that although elevators are usually considered simply functional, they can be so much more when designed by the right company.

“You don’t think about it until you’re in a really nice one,” she says. “We do anything from office buildings to hotels, sports stadiums, and college campuses. Anything you can think of, we can tailor-make. And it’s a very niche industry; there are few companies or organizations that do what we do and I’d say we’re arguably one of the best artists doing it because we’ve been around for so long and have so much industry knowledge.”

A major Chicago-based corporate office building, for instance, one of Eklund’s biggest and most unusual projects, featured numerous units and took five years to construct. And Eklund’s not only designs the cabs, but takes care of installation as well, through sister company BCE Specialities.

“We can do the design—we work with architects a lot—and then we also do the installation,” Tidmore says. “We have a sister company called BCE Specialties, which Beth is also President of, and we work closely with the elevator companies that do the mechanics to install the cabs ourselves. We handle it from design conception to installation.”

While work often comes by word-of-mouth for Eklund’s, the company bids on jobs as well. “Projects also come from other elevator companies who have used our services in the past and refer us to potential clients,” Tidmore notes.

Being a full-service business helps the company elevate itself above the competition. “What sets us apart is our industry experience and knowledge and then how we install the cabs. Not a lot of companies do installation,” says Tidmore. “It is what makes our business unique… We have a quicker turnaround time on projects and manage it from the design to completion, getting to be with the customer every step of the way.”

Challenges have included, of course, the ongoing pandemic and the numerous difficulties, such as supply chain constraints, it has created over the past few years, but Eklund’s has persevered. “It’s good to be back in an office setting again and having that company culture back,” shares Tidmore. “I felt like it was hindered during COVID.”

Despite supply chain disruptions, Eklund’s determination and commitment have enabled the team to maintain timely delivery and keep up the momentum. This, in turn, has led to a variety of notable accomplishments.

“All of our jobs are an accomplishment,” says Tidmore. “Being part of a big project definitely is. Two large office projects in downtown Chicago—about 100 cabs total—is one of our accomplishments in the past year.”

Tidmore is also particularly proud and pleased to be a part of not only a family-owned and family-run business but one that is headed by a woman.

“It’s inspiring working for a woman-owned business in 2023,” she says. “Being a fresh graduate from college and having good woman leadership sets a standard in a male-dominated industry. I think that also sets us apart. I wouldn’t say it’s easier, but it’s more comfortable for me to have the camaraderie of a woman owning your business and being able to highlight that,” she says. “It makes me as a young professional more comfortable being in such a male-dominated industry.”

It’s been encouraging for Tidmore to start out working for a company that prioritizes family values, care for employees, and the importance of encouraging young employees to not only do their best but also to make their way in the construction world.

Not only is she enjoying her work at Eklund’s and learning from the mentorship of President Beth Cunningham; it’s something she can see herself doing for years to come. “I’d love to make a career of being here and being in this industry,” she says. “It gives me as a young professional something to be proud of and look forward to as well.”

The post Superior Products for Elevated Success<p class="company">Eklund’s</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Home manufacturing, as opposed to construction, is an intriguing field considering the current, constantly shifting economic climate. And with demand rising for everything from tiny homes to earthships, it appears to be a good time for those in home prefabrication to push the envelope in this growing market.

Authentically custom
Working from its 154,000-square-foot facility spread across 37 acres in Middleburg, Pennsylvania, Apex Homes transforms the traditional lack of choice in this type of home building—which has turned many prospective homeowners against the idea—into an authentically custom process that has customers lining up for their share of the action.

In addition to saving time and money, modular homes offer myriad other benefits—namely quality. Firstly, there is no water damage to navigate during the building process as homes take shape inside the safety and cover of a factory. There are also third-party quality control inspections where no stone is left unturned, ensuring that even minor details are taken care of. As modular buildings can be shipped to far-off states, the integrity of the structures is paramount to their safe delivery and installation. There are also the obvious benefits of the time it takes to complete a modular home—breathtakingly short compared to conventional construction, with lead times as little as two months from when the unit settles onto its foundations until completion.

As an example, Lynn Kuhns, President, cites a project comprising a 75-unit apartment block that took less than 20 months to complete, comparing it to the typical 30-month lead times for buildings like this one using conventional building methods.

For Apex Homes, flexible, custom fabrication means more than simply producing quality modular homes on shorter timelines; it also means building relationships that last. And those, as we know, cannot be fabricated. It is in this generosity of spirit that the company’s popularity resides.

Far from sticking to set floor plans and finishes, this team does everything it can to provide customers with their custom prefabricated home dream. Apex has also built inner city apartment buildings in places like Philadelphia and Connecticut in this way; police stations; daycare centers; stadium bathrooms; and diverse other types of buildings.

“Let’s say you provide us with a floor plan that fits your needs and likes. We can convert it into a modular format and give you what you’re looking for,” says Kuhns, clarifying that the modular medium does have restrictions in some areas, which is simply the nature of the method.

Beyond that, however, Apex Homes is a true trailblazer when it comes to expanding the boundaries of this building method. For those who arrive without their own ideas and require guidance, a generous portfolio of nearly 150 floor plans awaits. While most people prefer doing their signature thing with custom designs, some appreciate the ease and convenience of existing drawings.

Above and beyond
As a business that genuinely cares about its customers, Apex Homes’ relationships with them are paramount to its success. Often going above and beyond to get to know people, hospitality is a large part of what the company offers. The company’s people apply themselves to understanding what makes customers tick and providing them with the best product possible.

“We try to establish those friendships, because when things are tough, the relationships can continue to stay strong. And we work through the challenges as they arise,” Kuhns says, underlining the importance of resolving errors and problems maturely and in functional ways, ultimately paving the way for excellence.

Its sterling work has earned the company numerous awards—most recently, the MHBA 2023 Manufacturer of the year two years in a row, as well as Home of the Year under 2,500 square feet for 2022. As well as delivering quality, the company also challenges itself to prevent waste, repurposing materials as far as possible and where appropriate. That, perhaps, makes modular homes one of the best choices for those equally pragmatic about such matters.

“We were green before green was green, from the standpoint of building in a controlled environment. We recycle the majority of our materials,” Kuhns says. “In a month, we have two 40-yard containers that go to landfill; that’s it. Considering that we build four to eight houses a week, that’s very good, especially considering the amount of waste in conventional building methods.”

Centuries of experience
In addition to being conscientious and responsible with both materials and energy efficiency, there’s no shortage of experience at Apex Homes either. With over 200 years of combined experience—nearly 100 of those in its management team alone—project owners feel safe knowing they have the best hands on deck when working with this industry legend. Employing modular and panelized components exclusively or in combination to create the ideal floor plan, the company’s engineers are well-versed in this method for optimum gains for those who will eventually live in these homes.

These building elements also give designers a lot of scope to be creative. Together with its other capabilities, the Apex Homes facility also features a cabinet fabrication outfit supplying all its custom needs. That effectively means that, at Apex, nobody is in danger of moving into what folk singer Malvina Reynolds called “little boxes” in her famous 1962 song by that name. On the contrary, we’re in the specialized market of customization. There’s a lot we can do so that it doesn’t look like your typical modular home,” says Kuhns. Indeed, a marked move toward quality finishes, including walk-in showers, quartz countertops, and ceramic flooring, is taking this type of housing into the realm of fresh, modern living.

From its beginnings as a modular home fabricator in 1990, Apex Homes has always been known to be innovative. Buying the business on a bankruptcy sale in 2014 with 75 staff on board, Kuhns and his team have rebuilt the company to an annual sales mark of $26 million and a staff of 129. The family-owned business then morphed into an entirely new market as it took its mission—developing solutions that work—seriously. But it also knows how to show its people a good time.

Building a family
“We look at our employees as family because we have a lot of employees who have been here from day one,” says Kuhns. “We respect our employees in what they do,” he adds, underlining the importance of spending downtime together—like at the monthly luncheons, a tradition the company does its best to maintain.

End-of-the-year festivities follow a similar path, with a generous Christmas lunch preceded by an annual awards ceremony where people receive recognition for their contributions throughout the year. Kuhns makes no bones about why he is a tremendous fan of the Apex team.

“Many of us have worked together for a long time… We all have a common goal we try to accomplish,” he says. “I’m fortunate and blessed to have a great staff and team.”

Beyond the women’s shelter, another of the charities Apex Homes supports is one close to home—Kelsey’s Dream, a foundation supporting young cancer patients. Diagnosed around the age of five, the Kuhns’ daughter, Kelsey, passed away just after her twelfth birthday after a seven-year battle with the disease.

Following this tragic loss, Kelsey’s little sister brought Hopper the cancer crusher, a frog, to life—a little stuffed therapy animal that the Kuhns family now dispatches to healthcare facilities to share with sick children undergoing treatment. As one can imagine, the ordeal has left scars, which the family chooses to handle with a deep humility that today helps them to serve others facing the same pain.

In addition, the team supports a local women’s shelter by supplying them with building materials when needed. As a further boost to the shelter, Apex Homes regularly buys its staff meals there, served by the company’s owners.

The future is modular
To ensure this level of engagement persists well into the future, the company contributes a lot of its time and energy to building up the next generation, hosting industry seminars and other events at two local technical schools.

The benefits of modular home fabrication are indeed significant for those who choose this career path, and are important to impress upon students and other potential candidates. In the modular field, staff members work in an enclosed facility, keeping them out of the elements in a safe, clean, and comfortable working environment. Of course, the demands of safety and travel are also much more agreeable. And at Apex Homes, opportunities for personal and professional growth abound, as the team continuously expand their knowledge, skills, and experience.

The company’s owners ensure that employees have everything they need to do their best work at their fingertips. That means timely upgrades, the latest software, and staying on top of the latest developments in the industry. Apart from heating its facility efficiently thanks to new technology, the company recently installed a new computer numerical control (CNC) machine in its cabinet shop to improve accuracy and output. It also introduced a new, remote-controlled overhead crane system that allows for vastly improved, easy installation of complete roofs.

With this ever-present awareness of keeping in stride with the future, Apex Homes is committed to continually expanding its abilities alongside a growing focus on the energy efficiency of its modular buildings. Additionally, it is planning further enhancements to its home base. The goal is to ease and simplify its processes to further benefit staff and, as always, to provide customers with enduring value.

The post Award-Winning, Modular—and Very Different<p class="company">Apex Homes</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Dean Dovolis, upon receiving his bachelor’s degree in architecture and environmental design from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and his master’s degree in architecture and urban design from Harvard, knew he didn’t want to work for anyone else. This led to him founding DJR upon graduation, and never once looking back.

“I thought, ‘if I’m going to fail, I’m going to do it on my own,’ so DJR was founded,” says Dovolis, who created the company in 1985, registering it the following year.

The way forward
As DJR’s founder, principal, and chief executive officer, Dovolis’ passionate concern for environmental design and the future of the planet—forged during the oil crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s, and consequent embargoes—has from the start suffused the entire range of services this highly successful architectural firm provides.

While global warming per se wasn’t on many people’s radar in the ’80s, questions about sustainability were becoming pressing. Wild fluctuations in fuel prices, rising interest rates, and out-of-sight house prices fueled growing awareness of real-world issues in the younger Dovolis.

“You became very aware of it, and how to map the future,” he says. “Because of those events, I thought that we needed to have more balance in economics and societies. That was the impetus for studying those areas.”

Community collaboration
Since its inception almost 40 years ago, DJR as a company has remained passionate about architecture and working for the benefit of others. One of the company’s first large-scale projects was in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, where the grassroots American Indian Movement (AIM)—with its timely focus on critical issues like poverty and preserving Indigenous culture—was founded in the late 1960s.

It was against this backdrop that DJR “collaborated with the community to develop housing and urban design strategies aimed at promoting development in a traditionally Native American area,” as the firm notes on its website.

Becoming the sole source of architecture for the Phillips neighborhood, DJR soon took on the many affordable housing projects, community planning projects, and environmental works that became so influential in the culture of the firm.

Heavy involvement in community organization, planning, and mapping further fueled DJR’s commitment to affordable, sustainable, and modular housing. “All those factors became part of the culture in the early years, and it’s carried forward ever since,” says Dovolis, adding that DJR is presently investigating 3D and printed housing initiatives.

Proud of its work benefiting underserved local communities, DJR has also taken on international projects in Djibouti, Africa. Driven by the Djibouti government, the SeaFlower project involves 80 hectares of reclaimed land/tidal oceanfront waterway being developed as a residential and commercial hub.

Making it modular
In many nations, the need for housing is becoming urgent, and the United States is no exception. In response, DJR is investigating new markets—modular construction in particular—since there is growing demand due to rising interest rates and a need for workforce housing. This pressure has DJR looking to meet housing demands in California, Nevada, Alabama, and Arizona—and particularly in Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona.

“The Southeast is going to be a big market,” says Aron Johnson, associate and project manager. “If you look at the maps of where people are moving, that’s where they’re moving, and that will be one of the greatest needs. Volumetric modular building is in its early stages down there because it’s limited to where these factories are located in the U.S., and there’s kind of a hole there in the Southeast that needs to be filled.”

In the modular arena, some of DJR’s projects include The Dylan, Mod42, and The Alvera, which, in the company’s words, “represents a major landmark in innovation and boldness to the Twin Cities housing market with its breakthrough use of modular construction, semi-automated parking, and integration of public art.”

Located in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, The Alvera is the region’s first seven-story Type 3A modular building. Well-received by the community, the modular, multi-family project was completed within a reasonable time frame.

Since its completion last year, The Alvera has received almost too many awards to mention. These include three from the Modular Building Institute (MBI): People’s Choice Award; Judge’s Choice Award; and First Place Permanent Modular Multi-Family Above 10,000 square feet, along with the Minnesota Real Estate Journal Award for Best Urban Mixed-Use; the Finance & Commerce Top Project (2021); and the Award of Excellence from NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association.

The building’s exterior also features a 7,600-square-foot mural by nationally recognized artist, Aaron De La Cruz.

Looking back, Johnson remains proud not only of The Alvera but also of the work he and Amanda Pederson, associate and project manager, put into the project. Multiple meetings were held with existing residents and the community itself to help shape the building, and these meetings had a significant impact on the overall design.

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul have well-organized communities, and even though DJR is only required through public process to notify locals, the company instead held multiple meetings.

Johnson recalls that for another, non-modular project, the community worked hand-in-hand with the developer on a mixed-use building to relocate its community offices and pledge their support. Other factors, including traffic plans, were examined to see how to make crossings safer through new and improved rights-of-way, creating safer solutions.

Benefits of modular
Unlike traditional building methods requiring multiple skilled tradespeople, prefabricated modular construction can largely be erected faster and with far less disruption to local residents and businesses.

With volumetric construction, units or modules are created off-site in a factory. Typically made from wood, steel, or concrete panels, these units can be finished, delivered to a location, and interconnected or stacked relatively quickly.

According to a recent study, the market for these prefabricated volumetric building systems is expected to grow about 14 percent between 2020 and 2024. Thanks to growing recognition of the benefits of volumetric construction, Johnson led the largest modular project in the history of the Twin Cities, with Pederson behind the greatest expansion of Minneapolis public housing in almost 40 years.

For Pederson and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA), DJR’s recent work is inspiring a national model, as it is in direct response to meeting affordable housing needs in Minneapolis. The entire MPHA development is contained on infill urban sites. With a footprint of over 800 scattered sites, most units are single-family or duplexes.

To help meet the need for more housing, Minneapolis recently changed its zoning code to accommodate a 2040 plan. This eliminated single-family housing districts, created new opportunities for density in the ‘missing middle’ of housing, and added density on a smaller scale.

“We are currently under construction of 16 sites that are smaller—50 by 140 foot lots—all across the city of Minneapolis, and we’re doing modular fourplex and sixplex buildings,” says Pederson. “And while you can certainly do modular on a large scale across a huge, more open greenfield site, the thing that’s unique about this is that it’s being done with the Public Housing Authority on these urban infill sites.”

Along with creating affordable housing, DJR is involved with inclusionary zoning. This means allocating a percentage of units, usually 50 to 60 percent, for persons with 30 percent or lower adjusted median income (AMI).

Today, housing comprises about 60 to 70 percent of DJR’s business. Just four years ago, modular was at zero; now, it accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the unit production. Reasons for this include the crisis of housing affordability, labor costs, and the lack of available labor.

“These factors are forcing the housing industry to start looking at other ways to keep producing units, and modular is one of the solutions the market has turned to to maintain itself,” says Dovolis. “Larger construction companies are taking all the labor, leaving smaller companies with no solutions for how to deliver products to market on schedule.”

A place to grow
Aspiring architects like Pederson and Johnson come to DJR for many reasons, one being the opportunity to work on important projects that improve the lives of others. For example, nothing like Pederson’s work with the MPHA on 16 sites scattered across 12 neighborhoods had ever been done before in public housing.

An enormous but worthwhile challenge, this project saw DJR meet with every single neighborhood group, entitle and permit all 16 sites individually, and oversee the production and installation of factory-built units, along with Pederson’s work on financing and contracts.

For DJR, the results will truly be worth the effort, not least because the company is breaking new ground in housing development. “If other housing agencies across the country see the success of this, they are going to start adopting new methodologies,” says Dovolis. “Minneapolis was the first to step up to this idea of using volumetric housing to solve the affordable housing crisis.”

For Pederson, who is also enthusiastic about the firm’s many charitable initiatives, one of the biggest draws to DJR was its strong community roots. “We started in the East Phillips neighborhood, which is a low-income neighborhood just south of downtown Minneapolis, and I grew up not far from there,” she says. “We are very passionate about impacting the communities we live in for the better. And even as we’ve expanded beyond the Midwest into larger markets, I think we can bring that sensibility to all the work that we do.”

Johnson says that working at DJR has enabled him to do everything that he ever wanted to do in his architectural career. “I’ve gotten to design five-star hotels, museums, and high-rises, but to me, it’s more enjoyable designing buildings that you lean on every day, buildings that people live and work in,” he says. “And that directly relates to embedding yourself in that community. In the majority of the projects we work on in our urban areas—not all of them, but most—we are solely focused on improving that urban area, improving the quality of life.”

Dovolis says that, over the decades, the business he founded has become known as not just a respected architectural firm, but a local, national, and international community resource. On a personal and professional level, this means helping communities grow, develop, and take control of their economic futures.

“The nature of our clients is changing, and the percentage of BIPOC clients grows every year,” he says. “We are excited that we’re helping a new generation of minority developers and community leaders evolve, grow, and become mainstream in community development, real estate development, economic development, and so forth. We’re growing and we’re going to continue to do that, and the impact of helping deliver [those outcomes] is going to be greater and greater every year.”

The post Shaping the Future<p class="company">DJR</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

A fully integrated design, development, manufacturing, construction, and property management organization with a foundation in manufacturing concepts such as Lean processes, Fading West is re-imagining the construction process, building high-quality single-family homes in attached or detached styles or garden-style multi-family housing in a variety of floor layouts.

Founded in 2016 in Buena Vista, Colorado, the company debuted its cutting-edge 110,000-square-foot production facility in November 2021. This impressive facility is dedicated to modular manufacturing, fabricating high-quality homes, and cutting costs by up to 20 percent and timeframes by more than 50 percent compared to conventional construction.

“We started in my little community of Buena Vista of 3,000 people. In a small town you get to know everyone in the community and the lack of affordable housing was pushing out the workforce segment of our community,” says CEO Charlie Chupp.

“So firefighters, teachers, police officers, servers—this whole group of people were being pushed out of our community and it was having an effect not only on families and their lives, but also on the town itself.”

Chupp, who has a 20-year background in manufacturing, came together with a group of people to start looking at how affordable housing could be supported from a manufacturing standpoint.

“How do you build a home by streamlining the whole value stream from development to construction and incorporating offsite construction or modular construction into that?” he asks.

That’s where Fading West started, by focusing on creating high-quality, architecturally interesting homes that are affordable for the workforce segment. The company’s first big project in Buena Vista featured 150 homes that proved the business model.

“We started bringing in more of the workforce and getting some pretty aggressive price points,” he adds. “Then other communities told us they had the same problem; it wasn’t just a local problem, but a statewide and even a national problem.”

Starting as a development company, Fading West initially purchased homes from factories in Nebraska and used a local general contractor to finish them on site before starting its own construction division and building its own factory. Its vision for the future of housing is optimizing each of the major cost drivers in the whole process including development, on-site construction, and the off-site construction piece.

“We want to be a part of solving the U.S. housing crisis, and that’s a big part of why we handle all of these pieces, and how we put all these pieces together—to reduce costs and get families into home ownership,” Chupp says.

Not only are housing prices soaring, but according to the National Association of Homebuilders in the U.S., an estimated 41 percent of the U.S. construction workforce will be retiring by 2031, meaning there will also be less supply as well.

“But we’re not doing anything to increase the supply, so we have to start focusing on the supply side—how can we build more houses and start leveling the demand and supply?” Now Fading West is working closely with the Governor’s office in Colorado to increase the supply by getting government-subsidized workforce housing projects funded to lower the price and make them possible across the state.

Building smaller houses is a start. While there is still a market for large-lot detached homes, many homebuyers now in the workforce want a smaller home in a community setting so they don’t feel isolated. To that end, Fading West works to design communities with land planning initiatives that encourage relationships, such as big front porches and large common green spaces where people can gather, along with well-designed, very livable, and smaller-footprint townhomes.

“That’s a huge issue for communities to accept, that their zoning does not allow affordable housing,” Chupp says. “This is a meaningful mission to help communities and government and municipalities figure out how they can have great quality and architecturally interesting and beautiful homes that I would be proud to live in, and we can do that at an affordable price point.”

But this requires not only efficiencies through the manufacturing process but also zoning codes and entitlement processes. Without that, there will never be affordability for a whole segment of society.

“Our target has always been to build housing for someone making 80 percent of the area’s median income, which usually targets that workforce,” Chupp says. “That’s where our focus is. And then we work with municipalities when they want to bring subsidies to the development to drive at lower than 80 percent.”

Fading West also embraces the sustainability side of building, particularly when designing the most efficient two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath townhome that can be designed to be livable and high-quality, but also optimized across the manufacturing process done in the factory, which represents about 90 to 95 percent of the total scope of work.

“When we think about design for manufacturability, a big part of that is material optimization and standardization,” Chupp explains. “We can get higher quality, more sustainable products and optimize them across multiple homes and projects so we’re driving waste out of the process. That’s what’s lowering our cost, but you’re not getting a cheaper product.”

While most estimates for waste at a typical construction site are that 30 percent or more of the product delivered is wasted or scrapped, Fading West is below six percent. With a statistic like that, why isn’t this type of build more popular?

“It’s a massive education process,” Chupp says. “Many people think modular is ‘manufactured,’ and manufactured housing in the U.S. is an HUD (Housing and Urban Development) code done to lower standards and isn’t the same quality; the building specifications aren’t the same,” he explains.

Fading West, however, produces a modular product which is an International Residential Code-built home, with the same specs as any site-built structure, requiring the same inspections as a site build, resulting in the same quality as—or better than—any site-built home.

Fortunately, both developers and buyers are becoming more open to the concept of modular housing, particularly when built properly. “We have a great relationship with the Colorado State Government,” Chupp says. “We talk to their staff daily, because we’re working with so many of their communities where we’re trying to help these local jurisdictions get funding and get projects done quickly.”

Fading West has built about 250 homes at its factory in the last 20 months, with 10 to 15 different projects in high-cost areas like Breckenridge, Telluride, Vail, and Gunnison (near Crested Butte). “When those projects are successful and those communities start talking about it, then that filters through all of their networks as well. So we’re seeing people change their minds,” says Chupp.

“We’re making a difference in these communities,” he says, which includes a recent partnership and the building of 16 homes with Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley.

“We’re not trying to build the cheapest modular box coming out of our factory; we’re trying to get the whole home to its lowest cost. We think about how we optimize what happens in our factory and what happens at our site.”

When things are very costly in a local area, Fading West will bring that tranche of work into the factory, which may make its modules cost a little more but will reduce the site work, speeding up the construction and the finishing.

“What makes us different is how we’re approaching this business. It’s not just our factory, it’s the whole cost of the project from beginning to end, what the home buyer pays at the end,” Chupp says. “We also approach modular construction from a manufacturing perspective.”

Chupp’s background in manufacturing has also made Lean production part of Fading West’s mandate: what does the customer value and how do you maximize value to a customer through a process that minimizes waste?

When Fading West designs its products and processes in its factory and thinks about design, it’s always thinking Lean. While a lot of factories are built by construction companies that take construction and put it under a roof, that’s not manufacturing, that’s just construction under a roof, says Chupp. Manufacturing is a much more complex, streamlined thought process, and it’s a very different approach.

“Our mission is to see families, who would never otherwise, walk through a home see that they’re going to get something that’s well built, that they can be proud of. It’s a powerful thing to see that happen. It’s why Fading West exists,” he says.

“We’re not here to be a modular homebuilder; we’re not here to be a GC. We’re here to figure out how to streamline and remove waste and reduce costs so that families that would never otherwise own a home can walk into one of their own. That feels like a great accomplishment and it’s something our team is super proud of.”

The post Bringing Quality, Affordable Homeownership Within Reach<p class="company">Fading West</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

A few years after his father founded Pacific Mobile in 1983, the young Garth began working for Pacific Mobile on construction crews throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. Learning all aspects of the business from construction to administration, Garth and his sister purchased the company in 2011, and it remains family-owned to this day.

The roots of Pacific Mobile go back to the 1970s when Garth’s father and a business partner started Westwood Industries. Seizing an opportunity to make modular buildings, the company enjoyed plenty of early success. Their output included relocatable classrooms for education clients in the Pacific Northwest, and others in energy, such as nuclear and housing for oilfield workers in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay.

When the economy started lagging in the early 1980s, the partners separated. Garth’s father launched the mobile-office rental fleet side of things in 1983 with Pacific Mobile, and his former partner shifted to the manufacturing side.

“My father was doing the same thing, but working with the end user,” says Haakenson. “Typically, the business model is that you have a manufacturer, a contractor in between, and then the end user. [With us,] the contractor, Pacific Mobile, does all the design, installation, and so forth, working with the end users. That’s the business model we have now.”

Instead of manufacturing, Pacific Mobile contracts with about half a dozen factories across its territory to manufacture the structures, which are assembled on site and made into the finished products.

“Nowadays, 60 or 70 percent of a project can be completed in-plant, and the remainder of it is a combination of site work—building roofs or doing brick finishes, things that can’t easily be transported, giving it more of an aesthetically pleasing look,” Haakenson explains. “People don’t really know it’s a modular building; it’s a different form of construction, and that’s how we like to look at the custom side of the business.”

From mobile offices and temporary or relocatable buildings, storage containers to modular construction services, Pacific Mobile delivers quality professional products and services every time. With 12 locations across the Northwest, California, and Arizona Regions, the company provides floor plans, furniture, step and ramp systems, and even chairs, desks, filing cabinets, and appliances as requested.

Pacific Mobile can lease out anything from an 8 x 16-foot unit used as a construction site office for a few months to massive spaces of up to 100,000 square feet. One client in particular working on a current large-scale project is Turner Construction. The international construction services company is involved in the $4 billion project to replace San Diego’s International Airport Terminal 1. The phased project is expected to take six years and needs to house engineers on-site for the duration.

“We can mobilize 100,000 square feet of mobile office and put it in a parking lot, and it stays there for the time,” says Haakenson. “We then take it back, remarket it, and repurpose it.”

Since mobile units are cleverly designed in sections measuring about 1,000 square feet, they can easily be made larger or smaller, depending on client needs. If a customer requires 5,000 square feet, for example, five boxes are used.

Once a project is completed, the boxes are reconfigured and delivered to other locations. “You get to choose from different configurations, and that’s what’s great about it when you talk about recycling and repurposing; it doesn’t go to waste. We can reuse it, and it has a long life cycle.

Continuing on its growth trajectory, last December Pacific Mobile acquired Sustainable Modular Management (SMM). Based in Frisco, Texas, SMM is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. An established, family-owned business, SMM manages more than 700,000 square feet of leased modular building space, with clients that include the federal government, the energy sector, healthcare, and education.

In a media release, SMM President and CEO Nick Mackie discussed the benefits of the two companies joining forces:

“After running a process which consisted of interviewing multiple potential partners, it quickly became clear that Pacific Mobile was the optimal choice,” said Mackie. The synergies between the two entities “will increase PMSI’s competitive edge by widening its geographical footprint and providing instant access to new end markets.”

While continuing to operate in its present form—including retaining all 45 SMM staff members—the move has afforded the team at SMM access to Pacific Mobile’s back-office support (including human resources, accounting, procurement, information technology, and marketing), access to 10 storage and maintenance facilities across the western states, and other benefits.

“It was a really nice addition, and complemented our business mix as well,” says Haakenson. “We do a lot more privately funded work; SMM does more publicly funded work. Blending the two really does balance our exposure to any downturn that could happen, and diversifies our business in a good way.”

To ensure Pacific Mobile provides all its customers with the highest quality mobile structures, the company reinvests 15 percent of its revenue into building maintenance. The reason, says Haakenson, is simple: “As long as you do that, these buildings have a 25, 30, or even 40-year lifecycle. If you don’t do that, like anything else, they won’t last.”

In the early days of the business, Pacific Mobile didn’t have the financial backing to borrow money and build a rental fleet, so it focused on the construction side. All the profit Pacific made over the years in construction was reinvested into buying a single-wide mobile office rental fleet.

As that fleet grew over time, the company took advantage of sound financial backing with its banking partners. This led to some acquisition opportunities which propelled the company into the leasing market alongside construction, enhancing its growth in the California market. “So there is a nice combination of acquisitions and organic growth that got us to where we are today,” says Haakenson.

At Pacific Mobile, all buildings are maintained to the same standards of quality, which is unusual in the industry. “One of the things we point to is this consistency of quality in our rental fleet; that’s important. And we have a lot of flexibility in the lease programs that we offer: lease to own or outright purchase, and we can finance some deals internally.”

Over the decades, Pacific Mobile has been behind countless successful projects, many in education. One that immediately comes to mind for Haakenson is its award-winning SAGE classrooms (SAGE standing for Smart Academic Green Environment).

“A relocatable building is what it really is,” he says. “Not temporary, just relocatable.” Unlike the dark and poorly maintained school portables of the past, Pacific’s relocatable buildings are designed to be conducive to improved learning environments, and made “with the best in green building practices.”

Back in the day, schools sourced cheap buildings because they believed they were temporary; decades later, these structures are now old and tired. Pacific responded by developing new products incorporating many features from standard portables, which were essentially 28’ x 32’ boxes with one window and eight-foot-high ceilings.

Pacific’s structures have vaulted ceilings, more windows bringing in natural daylight, and HVAC systems, are plumbed, and boast other modern amenities. The classrooms are available in 28’ by 64’ or 28’ by 32’ configurations, and some are even equipped for solar power. More information is available at https://pacificmobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/SAGE-Sell-Sheet.pdf.

“SAGE is a product we are very proud of,” says Haakenson of the buildings, which also feature steel floor structures and are made of environmentally safe building materials. “It’s a slow process, getting people to think differently about what was historically a temporary need, but it’s really a long-term need that’s relocatable, and you shouldn’t shortchange the quality of the buildings we put students in to learn.”

With a rental fleet of about 3,800,000 square feet, and growing to approximately 240 employees, Pacific Mobile looks forward to the future. As part of the company’s 40^th anniversary celebrations, Haakenson is visiting Pacific Mobile’s locations, discussing updates, sharing results, and talking about three- and five-year plans. At the same time, the team is celebrating with company barbecues and cornhole tournaments, “going light on the business talk, enjoying each other, recognizing what we’ve created and what we yet want to accomplish,” says Haakenson.

“We’re still standing here, and we’re going to keep standing,” he continues. “I can think of only about five of us in the U.S. that are still family-owned businesses doing what we do—if there are even five. The landscape is changing as far as who operates and runs these businesses goes, but we find being a family-owned business is an advantage. We have a really long-term approach to how we look at solving problems, serving our customers, and treating our employees; it’s a different game when you start talking private equity interests.”

For now, having experienced significant growth over the past few years, the company will keep reinvesting in itself to ensure quality and continue refining its services and processes for the benefit of customers. “We see a lot of opportunity,” says Haakenson, “and our approach is to continue to grow slowly and methodically over these next few years and find the opportunity where it’s at.”

The post Building on Success the Modular Way<p class="company">Pacific Mobile Structures</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

“Bay Shore is a leader in our market due to our attention to detail and innovation,” says Sales Manager, Tony Ellis. “These two things result in us producing high-quality and long-lasting machines that our customers can rely on.”

Quality and service
To ensure outstanding quality drilling equipment made to the highest standards, Bay Shore’s team of engineers develops innovative equipment designs. This is followed by a multi-stage quality program that ensures the machine is being built to high standards throughout the manufacturing process all the way to the finished product.

Bay Shore will also mount to any manufacturer’s excavators, increasing the versatility of the equipment. Drills can also be modified during the ordering process to fit customer needs. “Whether they need a short machine to drill in low-overhead situations, a machine that can drill rock, or a machine that can reach foundations far away, our solutions can be tailored to fit their needs,” says Ellis. “Bay Shore is also excited to work with customers to design and build custom equipment that’s not necessarily for the foundation-drilling industry.”

Knowing that downtime due to machine failure costs money and time, Bay Shore’s outstanding team focuses on getting machines up and running as quickly as possible. To achieve this high level of support, the company invests heavily in trained field-service mechanics and equipment and offers mobile field service in the United States.

The company’s record for manufacturing well-made products speaks for itself. Precision engineering and a determined stance on quality have earned the company repeat business and an enviable reputation of longevity for its equipment. Back in 1991, the company introduced its LoDril rig; over 30 years later, 99 percent of these are still hard at work.

Growing together
45 years ago, Bay Shore Systems was founded in the Bay area of California by Herb and Paulette Minatre. At the time, the two were in an adjacent industry producing piling equipment. Seeing a future in the drilled shaft industry, they decided that this was to be their direction, and, as an engineer, Herb took on the design and manufacture of the equipment himself.

In 1996, the company, with its five employees, relocated to the City of Rathdrum, Idaho, leading to a robust expansion of its product lines, markets, and staff. Today, Bay Shore has approximately 85 employees.

Fostering a positive and collaborative environment from the start, the company is known for being a place where people can grow personally and professionally. “We’re always looking for the right people,” says Ellis. “What makes a good Bay Shore employee is a dedication to the customer experience and a willingness to work as a team to make our customers say, ‘wow!’”

Last year, Bay Shore received several awards for its role as an employer of choice. These include being named to the Best Places to Work list and making the list of Idaho Statesman’s Top 100 Private Companies. In another cause for celebration, this November marks Bay Shore’s 45^th anniversary. Tied in with the company’s holiday party will be a special recognition of everyone who has made this milestone possible.

Innovative products
Quality products, selection, and superior customer service continue earning Bay Shore the respect of its many clients. The company’s Truck LoDril series of foundation drill rigs include the TRt95—with 98,000 ft-lbs of torque, a maximum 80-foot hole depth, and a maximum 96-inch hole diameter—and the TR50 and TRt25.

To make selection easier, the company’s website features ‘Help Me Find My Rig’ and ‘Help Me Compare Rigs’ sections. Customers can select options from the product category, hole diameter (max), hole depth (max), excavator weight class (x 1,000), and drill speed range.

“Our TR50 has become one of our most popular machines,” says Ellis. Featuring a maximum 50,000 ft-lbs rotary torque, 80-ft hole depth, and 96-inch hole diameter, the TR Series is known for its ruggedness and reliability. 100 percent hydraulic, the TR50 features a fully integrated, high-capacity, single layer-grooved drum Kelly winch. Customers can choose from three different mounted solutions—truck, track, or excavator—allowing for greater freedom on the job site.

Constantly innovating, Bay Shore is also behind the state-of-the-art, patented Drill Sergeant (skid steer mounted) and Drill Sergeant Excavator.

While typical transport costs for a drill rig range from US$20,000 to US$70,000 for two loads to transport a mid-size drill rig, and US$250,000 for four to seven trucks for a large rig, one satisfied and relieved customer noted, “I can pick up the skid steer and Drill Sergeant with my truck and car trailer at no additional cost!”

The Drill Sergeant also affords better access to job sites with tight spatial limits than conventional rotary drill rigs, saves money, and opens the doors to more business opportunities. With the Drill Sergeant, even challenging projects like fencing, overpass and pedestrian bridges, light poles, pier and beam foundations, and solar farm foundations are made easier and less costly.

Although Bay Shore does not have a rental fleet, the company builds machines for inventory for immediate sale, called Ready Rigs. “We don’t offer rentals because we have rental partners who we work with as a rental outlet for our equipment,” explains Ellis. “We prefer not to compete against our customers in the rental market.”

At Bay Shore, products are sold through its dedicated in-house sales team, which covers the entire United States, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Rental partners also sell direct.

Although the company cannot give away details about its ongoing product innovations, Bay Shore Systems recently completed a custom application for one of its rental partners. “We have adapted a quick disconnect coupler between the excavator and our drill,” says a proud Ellis.

“Traditional quick disconnect couplers in our industry require each hydraulic and electrical line to be disconnected individually and one to two pins manually removed. This one of ours is a special connector because all of the hydraulic and electrical lines run through the connector, and the operator can virtually detach the drill from the excavator without leaving the seat.”

The big advantage of this quick coupler is that the drill and the excavator can be easily separated to ship in two pieces. With the ever-increasing costs of shipping and delays associated with large loads, splitting them up provides more leeway in pricing out the move, easier and quicker scheduling, and fewer permitting issues to deal with.

Eyes on the future
With its 45th anniversary celebrations coming up soon, the Bay Shore team looks forward to building on its strong foundations for years to come.

“Bay Shore is a family-owned company, and when you buy a piece of Bay Shore equipment, you’ll be seen and treated as more than a customer—as a member of our family,” says Ellis. “You’ll be treated with respect and dignity and we’ll do everything we can to surpass your expectations.”

The post Where Quality Speaks for Itself<p class="company">Bay Shore Systems</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.