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Moveable Walls For A Sustainable Future

by
Built for the Future

Commercial spaces can be a revolving door. Literally.

The average turnover for a commercial space is five years. That means any given commercial space could need an interior overhaul up to twice a decade. For building owners and leasing agents, that means time, money, and material waste going into the same space over and over again.

When it comes to tenants, change is inevitable — no matter what you do.

A new tenant brings different needs, and those needs mean costly renovations. Even the same tenant’s needs will change over time, and if the space doesn’t change with them, they’ll eventually seek greener pastures. These days, tenants want a space that isn’t just functional or productive. They want something that inspires; a productive space that people don’t want to rush out of at the end of the day.

At Built, we don’t view change as a challenge. We embrace it. Our solutions are designed to change. They also align with our belief in being environmentally friendly.

Software Led Solutions

The inherent value of our solutions are their amenability. Our custom environments are made to last, but we know that commercial space renovations are frequent. Even reorganizations within a company can create different needs.

With the help of ICE® software, DIRTT solutions offer easy flexibility and adaptability for a space. You can negotiate better rates with your landlord to stay longer, knowing your DIRTT solution will grow with you. For property managers, the solutions can be repurposed for new tenants. These changes could be as simple as changing a wall or two for personalization, or a more comprehensive overhaul.

Our solutions can be repurposed into the new designs or recycled if they aren’t needed. Unlike consumer tech products, our solutions don’t have generations. A solution installed tomorrow will forever mesh with future materials, allowing changes to be made without much hassle.

Innovative Sustainability

Our clients want to save money. But they also understand the importance of being good stewards to the environment. When it comes to the intention behind our custom environments as well as all the efforts and materials that went into making them, sustainability is front of mind.

Why is sustainability so important to us?

For one, our clients demand it, and what is sustainable is often cost-effective. But we’re also part of an industry that has historically been a big part of the problem.

Approximately 40% of all materials in the landfill come from conventional construction, renovation, and demolition. Just one commercial space can create a massive amount of waste due to numerous renovations over the course of its lifetime.

We are in the business of solving problems. Our solutions help clients create innovative and sustainable environments that can evolve with the needs of the space.

Recycled and Recyclable Environments

With off-site prefabrication, we require smaller crews and much less material waste. As our solutions are manufactured to the 1/16th of an inch, there is little waste from cutting or preparing materials on site. Any unused materials are recycled at the end of the process.

From the products itself to the design, manufacture and installation processes, our solutions are sustainable without compromising functionality or innovation.

Our clients create environments where people actually want to be, while also alleviating headaches for building managers dealing with constant change.

Three Preconceived Notions About Prefabrication

by
Mariner Wealth Advisers

I don’t watch much TV (I’d rather be working or fishing), but every once in a while I get sucked in to an episode of Myth Busters. It’s fascinating to me how we believe things that may appear true but in reality, they’re far from it.

Now and then our team at Built has to perform our own version of that show, busting a few myths and preconceived notions about prefabrication. These notions are well-intentioned, but like most myths, they’re just not very well formed.

For our industry, most of the preconceptions can be boiled down to three main myths. Allow me to bust them.

1. The Concept of Prefabrication is a recent development.

This one is pretty straight forward. Prefabrication techniques are actually hundreds of years old dating back to the 17th century. An example of early prefabrication that you are familiar with would be the Eiffel Tower. In our world when you say prefabrication, we like to think of it as working smarter, not harder. We all do enough of the latter, but we could all use some more of the former.

Even though it’s not a recent concept, prefabrication is the current trend in construction, especially for progressive firms. In our process we embrace and utilize innovative technology and we’re helping push our rather dated industry forward. It’s a trend we like being a part of.

2. Prefabrication takes away the chance to customize your design and it provides poor acoustics.

Perhaps this one comes from a bad experience with a partner who pushed a bad product or solution. The truth couldn’t be further from this misconception.

People don’t just want a modern office space with clean lines; they want a space engineered for productivity. That’s exactly the sort of capabilities we have with DIRTT. From a design standpoint, the options when building with DIRTT are truly endless. We can create and build a unique design to meet the needs of any given space.

Whether it’s scraping and rebuilding a space or smaller changes to parts of your existing space, our system can help create a solution tailored to your needs and allow you to see what the final result will look like before anyone shows up to the worksite.

Our team of designers are most intent on listening to you the customer and understanding your hopes and vision for your environment and then articulating it in a plan. If you can imagine it, we can build it.

And then the acoustics. This one may be able to get drawn back to some contractors from the old guard who resist the way technology is pushing our industry to change. Here’s the reality. If you build using poor traditional construction or a poor prefabricated system, your acoustics will suck. We take a holistic approach to acoustics and use the best engineered system made. DIRTT was completely developed with acoustic performance in mind. When you work with us and use our system you will find it performs acoustically as well or in many cases better than traditional construction.

3. Prefabrication is always going to cost more than traditional construction.

Just ask my lovely and loyal wife, Beth Anne, words like “always” and “never” are not good words to use. These two words have very definite connotations and frame a conversation in the context of “at all times” or “not ever”. They are not very “customer-centric” words or concepts. Every project is different, and there are complex considerations as it comes to cost.

But this is one preconception we hear often.

To use rough math here, when you break down project budgets, traditional construction typically consists of 70% labor and 30% materials.

Our projects typically consist of the inverse: 70% materials and 30% labor.

With this equation, we allow you to minimize both risk and uncertain labor costs, with the bulk of the cost going to manufacturing and quality materials, rather than on-site labor.

With our technology, we design your space and tell you exactly how much our prefabricated materials will cost to manufacture and assemble – and exactly how long it will take to assemble. That sort of cost and completion transparency is just something that you can’t get with traditional construction methods.

Some of our projects, we’re 5-6% premium, some maybe 2%, many are cost neutral.

But to us, “how much does the project cost?” is the wrong question to ask. We prefer questions like:

  • “What is the value to have and retain happy and engaged employees?”
  • “When you’re competing for top end talent, what do candidates look for in an office environment?”
  • “What’s the 5-, 10-, 15-, and 50-year vision of your space?”
  • “How will your traditional construction project hold up over time?”
  • “What will you do when you want to alter the space?”
  • “What is the perfect environment worth to you?”

Our questions could go on, but I think you get the point.

Sure, cost matters. It’s one common measurable when evaluating your building options. But we’re far from always costing more, especially when you consider a broader and more valuable set of questions. Here’s one time I think the word always is appropriate, we think the customer should always get the best value for their dollar.

I understand why you may have preconceived notions, but I hope I’ve busted a few of your myths.

Sometimes it just takes people who have resistance towards prefabrication in construction to come to our showroom or a work site and actually see the awesome things our system is capable of.

If you’re curious, we’d love to have you come by, so we can show you what prefab — and Built Interior Construction — can do for you.

Built Interior Construction – What We Do and How We Do It

Changing the Commercial Construction Narrative

by

A Built Blog, by Russ Branden

For those of us in the commercial construction industry, it’s no secret that we’ve seen change over the past decade or two.

A lot of change.

One specific change we’re all experiencing is a drastic decrease in skilled labor, coupled with an increase in material costs and overall project costs.

This has led many leaders in our industry to look for innovative solutions.

As parents of Gen-X’ers and Millennials sent their children off to college and prided themselves on this set of widespread college graduates, the construction industry began to see its first steep decline in skilled labor.

The emphasis on the skilled trades 10-15 years ago, is the bill that’s coming due today.

High school seniors set their eyes on corner offices and have been told college is the best path (and for many, of course, it is), but houses and businesses still needed to be built, pipes plumbed, and electricity wired.

And when reflecting about the biggest challenge in the construction industry today, there’s no doubt, it’s skilled labor shortage.

So much so that the largest General Contracting firms are now working with local high schools to see what students might be a good fit for apprenticeship programs for skilled labor.

A trend we’re all seeing, and one many are stepping into the gaps to help solve.

But as long as it took to get us here, it’s not a ship that can be righted in the short-term.

And even if we had a huge rush of high school juniors and seniors entering the industry, we’re still looking at a minimum of a five-year training curve. We’d still be years and years away from meeting current and projected construction demand.

A sobering reality, but a reality nonetheless.

It’s not just labor shortage, either. Compressed schedules are driving up costs. Increased client involvement and expectation are making processes more complex.

Because in a culture that can order any necessity, toy or gadget we desire as we’re walking to the car and have it arrive on our doorstep one to two days later, we want our office the way we want it, and we want it now.

Our team at Built can’t deliver an office as quickly as I can get a new fly rod from Amazon, but in terms of the construction industry, it’s pretty close.

From concept to completion, some of our major installations have taken as little as three months.

Under the promised timeline.

And on budget.

It’s so different from the widely accepted way of doing things, that many don’t even believe us when we tell them how little time it will take and that we’ll remain on budget throughout the process.

There’s a built in BS detector in our industry, but it’s been fun to break down those barriers with our results.

Prefab construction pushes the boundaries and can take time to adopt, I get that. But the story is changing.

But for so long, so many people have only done it one way – and typically that is accompanied by being slow, over budget, and an overall frustrating experience for all involved.

But we’re changing that narrative.

We’re ready for a new story, with new skilled labor, and new expectations.

We’re ready for a simplified building process, one that creates innovative, inspiring, and BS-free spaces.

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