If you’ve been hearing that panelized or modular construction is the future of home building for the last few decades, you might be wondering why the future never seems to arrive. Benefits like quality control, minimizing waste, and easier scheduling should be real. So why isn’t off-site construction more widely adopted? What do you need to know if you want to give it a try? And what would have to change about off-site processes to make them work for your business?

As the high-performance building world focuses on lowering energy loads and increasing comfort, the building industry at-large still misses a lot of the low-hanging fruit when it comes to mechanicals. From simple solutions for hot-water delivery, to getting ducts into conditioned space, to providing enough fresh air, once you understand the problems with what we’re doing now, we can talk about practical solutions.

There are good reasons why the building industry is hyper-focused on things like resilience and energy efficiency these days. Yet, the perceived quality of a new home or remodel often comes down to what we can see and touch—cabinetry, trim, tile, paint, and other finishes. These are things people experience and love every day about their homes. Creating them is also satisfying work that we should be proud of. This is why the ethos of the modern craftsperson is really no different than those of the past.

Join us at the Wylie Center & Tupper Manor for happy hour.

A business model that aims to enable and accelerate widespread adoption of sustainable housing and home building seems like a tall order for a two-person design firm. Yet that’s just what one Duluth, Minn., firm is doing. With systems thinking and integrated design, education, public engagement, and collaboration, Just Housing is building sustainability and resilience into their business, and into the communities they serve. Here’s how…

A carpenter with a passion for old homes started a remodeling business… and no, that’s not the setup for a joke. But if it were, the punchline would be this: He now runs a successful company solely focused on restoring, replicating, and building windows and doors for historic homes. Clearly, he did something right—let’s see if we can figure out what that was.

The design and building world of residential construction faces some obstacles, from a lack of skilled labor to a lack of diversity. For small businesses, bringing on first-time employees and growing a team comes with many challenges. With the right approach to recruiting, training, and compensation and benefits, you can build a great team, reduce turnover, and grow the thriving business of your dreams.

Ben Bogie is one of the leading voices in the building industry today, and he’s particularly keen to learn from his elders. John Abrams is an industry luminary, having run a successful business that built everything from housing co-ops to luxury homes over a 50-year span, focusing equally on designing and building smart, high-quality homes, being a great employer, practicing environmentally responsible building, and serving the community. He recently turned ownership of the company over to his employees and shifted his focus to helping others achieve similar goals. Join us for Ben’s live interview with John Abrams.

• John Abrams: In 1973, John co-founded South Mountain Company (SMCo) on Martha’s Vinyard. Fifty years later, this 40-person worker co-op is among the world’s highest-scoring B-Corps. SMCo is a design-build firm that practices integrated architecture, building, and solar-energy design. On Dec 31, 2022, John relinquished his company ownership and co-founded Abrams+Angell, providing guidance to small businesses hoping to achieve social, environmental, and financial goals. John is a co-founder, facilitator, and steering committee member of Building Energy Bottom Lines; he engages in a variety of forms of community activism mostly involving affordable housing, and serves on the steering committee and executive committee of The Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank. John is the author of Companies We Keep: Employee Ownership and the Business of Community and Place, and From Founder to Future: A Business Roadmap to Impact, Longevity, and Employee Ownership, which will be released this June. You can find John at abramsangell.com.

Hosted by Patrick McCombe, with a panel of past and present Fine Homebuilding podcasters, we’re doing it live with attendee questions to close the 2025 Fine Homebuilding Summit.