Commercial modular construction targetted by Warren Buffet & Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Buffett is forging further into modular construction, leveraging the Berkshire Hathaway-owned MiTek engineered building products and construction software firm to launch a hybrid offsite-on site building model targeted at hospitality, health care, education and multifamily construction.
In a release, Chesterfield, Missouri-based MiTek announced a partnership with New York-based, modular-focused Danny Forster & Architecture to ship sub-assembly components to jobsites, where contractors would follow simplified instructions and use the firm’s software to put them together.
“Modular has such clear advantages, but for your average commercial builder, the risks are too high and the learning curve is too steep,” DF&A principal Danny Forster, who designed New York’s planned 26-story AC by Marriott, which will be the tallest modular hotel in the world if built, said in the statement. “Our activation platform will change that.”
The model, which is similar to the flat-packing and shipping of consumer products that are then assembled by the end user, would solve one of modular’s biggest challenges — the transportation of factory-built units to jobsites where they are stacked together. Transportation is expensive, and hauling regulations around wide loads limit the design parameters of the buildings.