In this issue of its bi-monthly Modular Advantage magazine, the Modular Building Institute (MBI) returns to Las Vegas, with exclusive 2023 World of Modular interviews from John Buongiorno & Jim Gabriel, Linc Moss, and more!
2023 Economic outlook
The economy has been through a series of valleys and peaks, with the initial valley experienced in spring 2020, followed by an avalanche of economic rebound, and now potentially another valley to come. But even times of recovery have proven challenging.
Even when the U.S. economy was recovering from the devastating economic setbacks of March and April 2020, business owners struggled to smoothly operate their enterprises.
Among the numerous sources of challenge were equipment shortages, surging materials prices, and difficulty bringing workers displaced over the last two years back to the workforce.
Linc Moss: A Career in Modular Construction
Linc Moss worked in the modular construction industry for nearly 45 years and served as a Board Member and twice as President of the MMOA/MBI before retiring at the close of 2020. Several veterans of the modular construction industry can look back with pride at their contributions over the years, and none more so than Linc Moss.
Sometimes a challenge is really a door to a new opportunity—a lucky break. For young Linc Moss in the mid-1970s, that was the case. Facing a shortage of funds to continue his college education, he took a job with Holiday Rambler in northern Indiana with the aim of replenishing his bank account.
Is Modular + Scattered Sites a Solution to the Affordable Housing Crisis?
Dean Dovolis of DJR Architecture is turning the worlds of modular construction and affordable housing on their heads. Instead of stacking modules to create one building, he’s using them to build 16 buildings on 16 different sites, all on the same production run. And he’s partnering with a public agency to do it.
Dovolis is working with the Minneapolis Public Housing Agency on a scattered sites project. The project consists of 84 residential units across 16 sites throughout the city. The units will be constructed as four-plexes and six-plexes that are between two and three stories tall.
This Partnership Strives to ‘Take the Hell Out of Healthcare’
New York general contractor The Axis Group and Pennsylvania modular manufacturer Modlogiq have partnered on many projects over the years. Their unique relationship has led to success using modular construction in an uncommon way: to construct healthcare buildings.
John Buongiorno, Director of the Modular Division at Axis, and Jim Gabriel, President and CEO of Modlogiq, have been working together for over 20 years. The partnership’s past healthcare successes include a pediatric emergency department that was constructed during the height of the COVID pandemic.
Modular construction allowed the team to complete the project nine months ahead of the completion time for standard construction. “Being able to start putting patients through that addition nine months ahead of time certainly benefited the facility, and it also helped the community,” said Buongiorno. “This particular hospital sees over 20,000 pediatric emergency department visits a year.”
The latest edition of MBI’s Modular Advantage magazine contains these stories and many more. Subscribe at modular.org today.
