Foundation | Volume #07
+ Manifest for Rough-Ins and Fixtures Standards
+ Update: Drafting a Manifest Rough-Ins and Fixtures
Greetings from Las Vegas. Every year, the NPSA holds their Conference and Trade Show. My container specialist flew over to Mandalay Bay this year to bear witness to the innovations in shipping container use and modification. With a background in operating a container depot and building countless custom modifications, he’s looking for innovations that will make our manufacturing processes faster and safer.
NPSA aside, we’re hard at work putting together a manifest for the rough-ins and fixtures. Although the container project will range from small 120sqft to less-small 320sqft floor plans, the list builds quickly.
To manage the mess, we’re using Airtable to organize requirements by room, which breaks out into 4 other tables that represent — plumbing rough-ins, electrical rough-ins, electrical fixtures, and plumbing fixtures. On 2 separate tables that don’t require permitted review, we are incorporating finishes and decor, which account for anything from built-in cabinets to the mirror selection over the bathroom vanity.
I’m putting together a manifest for 2 specific reasons:
- Manage and maintain materials costs for a build out
- Standardize materials and organize by model type
The future of building is changing and developers are putting together multi-family retail/condo complexes at rapid pace. Unfortunately, it’s not happening fast enough. With better documentation and plans, there’s more accountability for the project across all workers, which makes a build out more seamless. We have the benefit of working on a far smaller scale, but it doesn’t mean it will be easy.
🔥 Hot Takes
Goldman Sachs puts millions into flat-pack housing in the UK
In the face of a growing housing shortage, Goldman Sachs has put £75m into a construction startup called TopHat, which takes a modern and tech-heavy approach to prefabrication of homes.
This is groundbreaking. I’ve spoke on this topic a few times and continue to praise companies that have put energy into making built-to-rent buildings. Although NIMBYism has certainly created backlash for the market of building rentable spaces on private property, it creates a solution for an existing resource that is underutilized. Just like Airbnb energized a market of underutilized or unused building, so can prefabrication-with-purpose work to alleviate a growing housing shortage.
Cities Are Rising in Influence and Power on the Global Stage
As major political and economic issues continue to knock at our doors, we’re seeing a shift from state controllers to city-led initiatives.
We’ve seen in recent years that major cities have taken a stance on critical topics ranging from climate change to the refugee crisis. Although there are certain problems to this pseudo-vigilantism, it emphasizes the impact of small-scale actors to influence the discussion on the crucial problems that impact us on a human scale.
As a builder focused on alleviating the housing crunch and a growing homeless population, I believe it takes a hyperlocal set of eyes and acute senses to understand the true state of affairs. And with grassroots organizations and pioneering entrepreneurs that start local before expanding programs, it’s important to support and foster that local growth.
Bay Area leads charge on fixing housing crisis. Will it work for the rest of California?
Although I admire local and state government policymakers that are trying to alleviate the mounting housing crisis with economic policies that cap rent and end public housing restrictions, I’ve noticed that the impact of making wide-sweeping state-wide and local economic policies cause major rifts in socio-economic demographics.
As a fan of urban development and city planning, I’m thrilled that we continue to reach new heights in building developments ever year, yet I can still understand why we still have a low housing supply. Fair markets will act in their best interest and drive major building developers to create properties with high margin, even if that means taking more time to build or making sacrifices elsewhere. Every year a project doesn’t finish, it means that fewer people are being housed and local market rents and prices are driven straight up.
The real solution is to look locally — find partners and suppliers to create coalitions that spearhead hyperlocal housing development within underutilized spaces like infill properties that sit several miles from metropolitan centers.
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