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.

[@FTHBUILDS]

Thank you for sharing this knowledge. As an owner of a company expanding into modular, these insights are very valuable. Cheers

[@PaulKassabian]

Glad it was helpful!

[@radekrybicki]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you say there must be clear and well functioning "processes" for a modular strategy to work effectively as a building solution. We are trying to tackle this for building modular for The Bahamas and are working our way through some of the points you emphasized around connections, what to standardize vs what stays variable.

[@krisp4889]

Spent time designing a series of modular homes based on 3 x 7 meter modules 1,2,3 brm options. Spent probably 5 time's longer on the connections, delivery system, how to move around on site without heavy equipment and assembly than the actual designs__ the US industry and you tube were a great help. Enjoy the channel have learned a lot.

[@PaulKassabian]

Thanks for sharing...yes, modular is fascinating and opens up new problems to solve to obtain its benefits. Nothing is free as you noted! Glad you're enjoying and learning from the videos!

[@Iwonttellyoumyhandle]

Thank you for sharing from your broad and deep knowledge of Structural Engineering. I've watched all your videos and value your simple explanations of critical engineering principles in a clear and concise manner, accessible to any interested party. The construction field in America, and much of the rest of the world, has been resistant to modernization. Modular is one of the many paths we need to spend more resources exploring and exploiting. Again, thank you for your work in the field, and your willingness to help educate a wider audience of the importance of good engineering.

[@PaulKassabian]

That level of explanation is exactly what I'm aiming for so thank you for recognizing and saying so! I'm glad these are interesting and hopefully educational to you.

[@oneoldgit]

As part of my engineering degree at the OU, we did a module on the ‘Failure of stressed materials’. One of the failures was an ‘unzipping’ container. Those corners you showed must have been one of the solutions to that problem.

[@utkarshgoel7873]

Thanks for sharing yu vision and visualization about the way 9f looking at things & thinking.

[@brodiejr4real]

Great advise! Thanks!

[@rabinsonrai2905]

As always, insightful.

[@PaulKassabian]

Thanks!

[@josi0023]

Thank you so much for this insigtfull lecture, it really helped me alot in my masters thesis, i was stuck and feeling frustrated and almost giving up, but this lecture made me closer to managing to design my own mudular structure .

[@PaulKassabian]

You're welcome!

[@mecania3919]

Good video. I hope you can make a video about topology optimization in the future.

[@PaulKassabian]

I'm planning to do one on 3D printing so those topics go well together...

[@alirezakeyvanfar]

Thanks. Amazing

[@scottaussem1771]

Ive been working on this for years. We must rethink our housing inAmerica. Modular is the way to go but its got to remain classy and functional. If an apartment dweller could remove that unit and plug it in to a home or stand alone ADU. Americas housing could be fixed.

[@abdullahadel9716]

Amazing.

[@PaulKassabian]

Thanks!

[@armintahoori6524]

Hello Paul. Thank you so much for your great lecture. I am a builder in Los Angeles California. Do you know some one expert for modular construction in Los Angeles? I am thinking to have modular building for my next project but I have minimum knowledge about permit process and I insoection. In California the rule is the whenever from the city should inspect and see all components which is kind of impossible with modular building. Thanks again

[@slavmarin7827]

thank you

[@PaulKassabian]

You're welcome!

[@andybrice2711]

I think there's a fundamental flaw in creating buildings based around the dimensions of a shipping container: A shipping container is not an appropriate size and shape for most rooms. I think modular buildings should be based around units with the dimensions of a portacabin or static home.

[@PaulKassabian]

Thanks Andy. Belinda Carr made a great video on just this topic: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2jcdnewa8d2nLc

[@thonglevan483]

Modular structure is an option. It is a process. Thanks

[@blakei5620]

In architecture school, modularity is strived for in ones design. Tutors push it to the max, but unfortunately have no regard for how these systems will really work, and what consequences an unresolved modular system has. My peers have tried to emulate a degree of modularity which ultimately makes no sense, and has given them a false sense of reality concerning the idea. Just thought id give my own thoughts.

[@eolsunder]

Modular structures and homes will only work when the cost of doing them is less. Many videos and companies i watch go .. oh you can have a modular home put together and dropped off at your location ! x square feet for y amount of money. Then you go ok, a basic mobile home thats design has been around for half a century costs half that amount and has 2x the square footage. So, pay twice as much for half as much for a modular home? why? You can drop the mobile home off at my spot just as easy.

[@replica1052]

build a central cylinder with all the wiring and plumbing - everyone gets a 360 apartment

[@kristianbenson3689]

promo sm

[@redpug5042]

dammit i thought this was about resonance, not renaissance!

[@chippysteve4524]

I was in complete agreement with you until you put an "S" on the end of Lego! Whatever next? Will you be naming things "for" someone instead of "after" them or perhaps insisting that UN inspectors check for uranum enrichment facilities in Eye-ran? ;-) Seriously though,my biggest problem with modular structures is the dumbing down of 1.The workforce 2.The designers. -I watched a fascinating doc about the success of Lego and how it has,predictably, warped Danish society especially in design and architecture. It is the over-implementation of an idea way beyond it's intended scope. There is quite rightly imo,little appetite for modular building outside of the world of simpleton factory owners,architects and executives who want to get rich quick without putting any thought into their work. That is why almost all new housing in the UK is hideously standardised - the mega contractors buy up all the available building land in overcrowded towns and cities,then standardise the designs (again greed/apathy from architects and contractors) leading to people paying huge sums for very poorly built cloned hovels that will not last a lifetime i.e. a mortgage becomes a hamster wheel on a shoddy lump that will fall apart rather than being passed on to the next generation in the vain hope of freeing one's offspring from a lifetime of debt. Standardised construction is also mind-numbing for the tradesmen who are treated like dogs by the parasitic employment agencies that profit from the work of others. Modular construction is what 'people' who drive Rolls Royces want for plebs. There is a very good reason why pyramid schemes are mostly illegal. Modular construction is such a scheme.

[@stevevitka7442]

Blu homes is kaput, all of these modular systems are the wrong approach, I avoid the node and shrinkage problems entirely by building a structural steel lattice with a proprietary technique than just hang everything off of the mechanically precise stuff.

[@thomasrogers9146]

BLU HOME WAS TOO EXPENSIVE. THEY HAD TOO MANY DESIGN AND OFFERED TOO MUCH OPTIONS WHICH CAUSE TOO MUCH CHOUS. FOCUSING ON 1 OR 2 DESIGN AND MASS PRODUCING HOMES IS THE WAY TO GO.