NextHouse: creating the next generation of factory-built housing

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The U.S. housing market is in crisis, due to a lack of affordable housing and a shortage of labor and materials to build them. Purdue University has a solution: NextHouse, an initiative to develop the next generation of factory-built housing.

The NextHouse team’s initiative is a moonshot, aiming to harness the expertise of industry and academia to create a revitalized, fully automated and scaled-up factory-built housing industry.

Its strategy is to “productize” housing, enabling economies of scale through standardizing the manufacturing and assembly of modular elements. “We want assembling a home to be as simple and customizable as assembling Lego bricks,” said James E. Braun, the Herrick Professor of Engineering and director of the Center for High Performance Buildings at Purdue University. “NextHouse will enable a new wave of sustainable, affordable and equitable housing, as well as a new pipeline of labor and manufacturing processes to transform that sector of the economy.”

One of the most significant aspects of NextHouse will be the construction of a large prototyping and testing facility on Purdue’s campus.

Read more about the NextHouse initiative here. 

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