overview
Welcome to the Construction, Design, and Land Use resource page. Here you will find information related to the construction and design of homes. On this page, we will discuss how material costs, labor shortages, and types of construction can impact housing affordability.
Construction Costs | Increased Infrastructure Costs | Types Of Construction | Labor Shortage | Land Use | Ivory Prize Winners
Construction Costs
Since 2007, the prices for construction materials have risen significantly, reflecting the high demand for the materials used in addressing housing shortages and in rebuilding efforts after natural disasters. Due to the demand, there is often minimal negotiation on material prices, thus impacting the pricing of housing for future home buyers.
Increased Infrastructure Costs
Infrastructure is the roads and utilities that go into servicing a property. Increased infrastructure costs can prohibit growth on both the private and government front.
Types Of Construction
The construction industry has many different construction types ranging from residential and commercial to vertical and horizontal. Below are links to information about the different kinds of construction that affect the residential sector.
Traditional construction
new construction methods
Labor Shortage
Since the Great Recession, the construction industry has struggled with finding dependable, skilled labor. This shortage has limited the supply that builders can input into the market to meet demand. The industry regularly summarizes the labor shortage to be a result of a culmination of three main issues: a lack of qualified laborers, an aging workforce, and immigration policies.
Workforce Development
Trade School Versus College
Land Use
Land is often classified as a finite resource as it has to be balanced with demands for urbanization, infrastructure, food supply, and other functions that modern civilization requires. In recent years, we have seen many on the rise cities begin to struggle with the lack of new land to develop, causing increased pricing in communities that once were affordable.
Ivory Prize Winners in Construction & Design
Ivory Prize 2022 Construction & Design Winner - VOLUMETRIC BUILDING COMPANIES
Volumetric Building Companies is a vertically integrated global volumetric modular construction leader headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, with locations across the United States and Europe. The company focuses on building the future by providing high-quality, sustainably produced buildings in less time across varied market sectors utilizing its technology-enabled design and engineering model, precision-driven manufacturing capabilities, and project-proven modular construction expertise.
Ivory Prize 2021 Construction & Design CO-Winner - bamcore
Since April 2020, “unprecedented spikes in lumber prices have added more than $24,000 to the price of the average, new single-family home, and nearly $9,000 to the price of a multifamily home,” according to the National Home builders Association. BamCore’s innovative bamboo-based framing solution has the potential to address this crippling rise in material costs, provide a more climate positive supply chain, reduce the need for skilled labor and speed up the build time by more than 50 percent, while producing a much more energy-efficient home.
Ivory Prize 2021 Construction & Design CO-Winner - CURTIS+gINSBERG aRCHITECTS: pARK aVENUE gREEN pROJECT
Often sustainability and affordability are competitive goals for housing development. However, C+GA is pioneering new approaches to break through the budgetary barriers that previously made building energy-efficient and affordable multifamily housing difficult. C+GA has designed the largest completed Passive House affordable housing building in the United States. Their primary strategy in designing energy-efficient Passive House standards is to reduce the operational cost of buildings, in turn, maintaining affordability long after a building is built, while providing healthier buildings for residents.
Ivory Prize 2020 Construction & Design Winner - Entekra
Entekra is a design, engineering and construction company that designs Fully Integrated Offsite Solutions (FIOSS) for both residential and commercial facilities. Entekra is implementing a fully integrated off-site building technique that streamlines its panelized building process from permitting to assembly so that it can be completed in just a couple of days. FIOSS by Entekra uses a combination of software and construction to automate and lessen the costs associated with off-site construction. Led by Gerry McCaughey, a recipient of the Ernst and Young “Industry Entrepreneur of the Year” award, Entekra is changing the way homes are built across America by providing low-cost innovative solutions to the affordability crisis. The Ivory Prize recognizes companies, non-profits, and government entities making measurable and scalable strides in housing affordability.
Ivory Prize 2019 Construction & Design Winner - fACTORY_os
Factory_OS is transforming the construction industry by vertically integrating 21st century off-site building technologies, software operating systems, lean manufacturing, and workforce development. They are striving to deliver multifamily housing more than 40% faster and at 20% lower cost.
Almost half of the nominations for the Ivory Prize in 2019 were in the area of Construction and Design (46%), and nine out of ten of those nominations were modular/factory-built approaches -- many with the goal of increasing construction productivity and bringing down housing costs. Factory_OS stood out in this group.