Boxable Latest to Push for Manufactured Housing

Long an element of new home construction, this start-up says its technology-based manufacturing is different from previous systems.

If manufactured housing has long been the Holy Grail – or perhaps white whale – of the construction industry it remains a relatively small factor in the building business. But Boxable says it is out to change that.

“When we began our initial research and development, we asked ourselves why housing wasn’t being mass produced at a factory like almost every other major product category in the world,” the company writes on its website. “We began developing a building system that had the potential to solve that very problem. Through our patented production process, we’ve been able to create a platform that allows for modular, prefabricated homes that are produced at scale in a factory and can fold up for transportation to the final installation location.”

Boxable’s first foray into manufactured housing is its Casita, a 361-square-foot studio style home that it says, “has the potential to bring high quality, affordable homes to the mass market in ways that have never been done before.” The modules can be stacked and connected, the company says, to create larger structures.

Boxable was started in 2017 by father and son Paolo and Galiano Tiramani with a $2-million investment. The company says it “began R&D, testing and spent time scouring the planet for alternate building materials and construction methods that would enable the automotive-style mass production of houses. Two years later it debuted at the International Builders Show and in 2021 it received a $9-million federal contract to build and deliver 156 Casitas for a military base, it said. That same year it broke ground on its first factory in Las Vegas, a 170,000-square-foot facility. The next year it entered into a partnership with homebuilder D.R. Horton for 100 Casitas and it has subsequently added additional manufacturing facilities with plans for what it says will be a “multi-million” square-foot factory. It says it has built over 600 houses and has reservations for over 190,000 additional homes.

In the meantime, it is seeking additional funding and investors to the tune of $1 billion. “We believe Boxable technology can make mass production of housing possible.”

Image: BOXABL

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