HUD awards modular housing grant to colleges in Washington and Colorado

Comprehensive guidelines for designers and builders working on modular units and factory-built housing projects using mass timber and light wood frame members are being developed by two universities thanks to a $225,000 grant.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the two-year grant to Washington State University, which will work in collaboration with Colorado State University. The goal is to make modular housing more viable to help address housing affordability in the U.S.

Pouria Bahmani, assistant professor in WSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Pouria Bahmani, Ph.D., assistant professor in WSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is leading the effort. He said they will seek ways to cut the cost of housing and construction without compromising safety or the quality of the built environment.

“There’s a housing crisis right now,” said Bahmani, adding “There is no way to solve the housing shortage except to construct more affordable housing. If we continue using the same construction methods, housing prices will likely rise due to increasing demand outpacing supply.”

“By streamlining the design process, the guidelines will directly contribute to more affordable housing by reducing design time and construction costs,” stated Bahmani.

Affordable housing in the U.S. is a growing problem due to low supply, a shortage of construction materials, and increases in construction costs. Some estimates indicate there’s a shortage of more than three million homes.

Bahmani said modular construction offers a potential solution because it can be done more quickly and efficiently than standard building and it can offer higher quality. “Instead of being constructed onsite by workers, modular homes are constructed in factories using assembly line techniques,” he explained. Units are pre-built, prefabricated and cut to size, then shipped to the construction site for final assembly.

Unlike traditional onsite construction that is subject to weather delays or shortages of skilled workers, modular and factory-built housing can be built year-round and in multiple shifts, potentially reducing construction costs.

Another upside is mass timber products are lightweight compared to other materials and therefore make for efficient and economical transport to job sites. Also, they can be designed as beams, columns, shear walls, and other structural components.

As part of the grant, researchers will develop structural and construction guidelines for a hybrid modular construction approach, combining mass timber with light wood frame members to optimize the design of modular units.

The guidelines will lead to the development of a preliminary standard that considers factors such as building occupancy, loading conditions, building height, construction materials, and modular unit transportation. “This standard will aim to ensure the safe, efficient, and optimized design of hybrid modular construction,” according to a statement from WSU’s Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture.

The Voiland College at WSU has more than 4,500 undergraduate students and 510 graduate students across six campuses. It offers 29 fields of study and is a core college at the land-grant university.