In the near future, a multifamily housing professional will move tenants into an apartment building that took four months to push from idea to reality. Here is how. ¹

In the project’s first hours, the professional’s software will inform the design with the seamless benefits of a highly organized marketplace. The site will be geo-located and legally defined from municipal databases. The plans will be selected with the help of layout automations. The building envelope will be calibrated to site conditions from national weather and solar databases. The building’s parts will be configured from a library of predefined pods and panels. Then, the supply chain will be engaged with invitations to tender those pods and panels. Packaged mechanical units, pod kitchens, and pod bathrooms will be swapped, depending on inventory and price. All the data needed to make quick decisions will be centralized. From the professional’s perspective, the database of configurable parts simply work together.

In those first days, interested professionals will log in to complete the logistical details of project delivery. The automated invitations will invite site specialists to plan site interfaces (foundations, utilities, and staging areas) — independent of suppliers. The same invitations will invite pod and panel manufacturers to confirm the use of their product lines and their interfaces. From the producers’ perspective, the pre-organized design and well-defined scope de-risk speedy commitment. The project and stakeholders will profit from simply working in parallel. 

In the first weeks, large parts of the building will be produced in parallel, across a variety of facilities. On site, the most bespoke elements will be placed: foundations interfacing with the earth, utilities stubbing into predefined locations, and the building’s environment curated (drainage, parking, etc.). In nearby factories, product platforms will drive decisions, churning out instances of pre-engineered product lines, and stacking products for delivery. The top of the foundation will act as the staging area for all these products to meet on scheduled shipping dates. Speedily, the packaged mechanical units, structure, floors, walls, kitchens, and bathrooms will be stacked in pre-determined order. From an onlooker’s perspective, the building will simply come together. 

Everyone will feel more empowered and productive. Designers will enjoy how the means of production richly informs every level of design, fabrication, assembly, and installation. Managers will watch means and methods become a feature of the design rather than an obstacle. Builders will feel administrative complexities melt away. Everyone will simply be more productive. Lenders will enjoy the reduced risk of funding products with warranties and predictable schedules. Developers will appreciate the velocity they need to address the housing crisis. This future is in our grasp. It only takes a few key steps to simply bring it together. 

This is the Configure-to-Order marketplace. It is the future of US construction.²

1. For the working plan behind this vision, see the Research Roadmap: CfOC’s sequenced, costed map of the shared infrastructure required to move construction from project-by-project delivery toward CTO marketplaces. ↩︎
2. The Research Roadmap is the applied version of a larger argument. See Philosophy for the essays that explain why CTO marketplaces require shared interfaces, social technologies, federated coordination, and new degrees of freedom. ↩︎