Modular Structures: Avoid These Big Mistakes!

We are experiencing a renaissance in modular building brought on by several converging factors, including improved digital design tools and fabrication techniques, ongoing labor shortages, and increased calls for more productive and cost-effective construction approaches. Designers can apply these approaches in many projects, ranging from well-funded startups to typical residential 5-on-1 podium forms. Modular scheduling benefits are well known - allowing project teams to pre-fabricate components, panels, or even entire building units off-site and ship them ready to install. However, designers must also consider a series of lesser-known but critical aspects that differ from standard construction.

In this video I discuss modular structures and share lessons learned from new design and legal investigation projects that apply to developers, architects, engineers, and modular startups and manufacturers. I explore several important issues, including design standardization and customization, coordination between various parties, challenging member and node configurations, and more!.

I'm Paul Kassabian. I'm a structural engineer and a Principal at SGH in Boston, MA. I taught graduate students at MIT for nine years and currently teach on/off at Harvard's Graduate School of Design (GSD). These are videos based on my structural design projects and years of teaching structures to students.