Over the past few years I’ve had a front-row seat to the mounting cost, slowness, and sheer frustration clogging up housing in America. Every city feels like it’s trying to build more homes—except everything from permitting to contractors, materials, labor, codes, is pushing that goal further away. What’s needed is not just a patchwork fix, but a rethinking of how we build. And it’s possible that the solution lies in what some call modular construction, factory-assembled homes, and an insistence on doing things clean, smart, and scalable.

A Glimpse into What Could Be

Imagine this: a turn-of-the-century triple-decker in Somerville, three stories, built from wood with clapboard siding, the kind of working-class housing stock that defined New England. In most years, building something like that would take months, maybe more. But at 13 Gilman Street, something extraordinary happened: after laying the foundation, the three floors were erected in just four days. They arrived not piece by piece, but in 24 boxes—complete with toilets, windows, all the inside fittings—on a truck bed. The house was, in effect, assembled rather than constructed from scratch on site.

Companies like Reframe are pushing this forward: better fabrication tech, smaller factories, more flexible processes. They talk about reducing labor time per square foot dramatically. The goal: finishing what used to take a year in maybe a week.

But modular isn’t a magic wand. There are serious bottlenecks: zoning and permitting delays, the risk of transporting oversized modules, code differences across jurisdictions, and sometimes just inertia in the industry. Those things are real. Yet the payoff—speed, cost savings in labor and materials, safer working environments—makes this model worth pursuing aggressively.

Why Now Is Different

We’ve had false starts. Startups hyped as revolutionaries which collapsed. But several factors are tilting the balance:

• Building materials and labor have become much more expensive. Delays and inefficiencies cost big money when interest rates are high.

• There’s growing demand for “missing middle” housing—homes for people earning too much for subsidized housing, but too little for what’s being built.

• Technology (in fabrication, in design, in site logistics) is better. The tools for modular are infinitely more capable and sophisticated.

• Social and political pressure is mounting. People are tired of waiting decades for their cities to build, regulators to approve, developers to show up.

Put all those together, and modular, templated, factory-based approaches start looking less like fringe solutions and more like systemic change.

What We’re Doing at Oldivai

This brings me to what we’re up to at Oldivai. Because modular housing isn’t just theory for us; it’s the core of how we operate—and how we believe housing can break out of the crisis.

Mission & Partnerships

At Oldivai, we are committed to workforce housing—homes that are well-located, affordable, for people who make our communities work (teachers, first responders, health care staff, trades). We partner with cities, local employers, community stakeholders to accelerate infill redevelopment of “missing middle” housing. We believe that people who provide critical services should be able to live in the communities where they work.

Project Zero: Proof in Practice

Our pilot, Project Zero in Spokane, Washington, was built using modern modular techniques. The modules themselves were completed in a climate-controlled factory, delivered fully finished interior, then craned into place over just four days, and then the finishing work (site work, foundations, connections) followed. Through that pilot we refined our “kit-of-parts” designs, standardized many elements, and tested what works—not just aesthetically, but logistically, financially, on the ground.

Design & Efficiency

We leverage templated design and lean / Six Sigma construction methods in our factories, to reduce waste, speed up production, and lower cost without giving up on human elements. Oldivai is not about sterile boxes—it’s about places people want to live. We focus on the human experience, design, quality, materials. At the same time, because modules arrive largely complete, we save time on labor, reduce exposure to weather delays, simplify systems work (plumbing, wiring, HVAC) in factory conditions.

Scalability & Investment

To make this work long term, we need more than one pilot. We need pipelines of projects so that factories can run at scale. With enough projects, modular housing becomes cost-competitive enough to restart development in places where people are priced out. Oldivai also offers investment opportunities so that work can be capitalized broadly: we believe capital with purpose can move markets.

What America Needs to Do Next

If we are going to take modular housing seriously, here are some of the levers we need to pull:

1. Streamline Permitting & Zoning — The delays for basic permits are often measured in months. That kills costs and slows everything. We need policy reforms that accelerate approval for modular / factory-built / infill housing.

2. Support Local Factories — Smaller, flexible factories located closer to job sites avoid costly transport, give flexibility to adapt to local codes, and reduce carbon. We need incentives—tax, infrastructure, regulatory—to make it easier to build and run modular facilities.

3. Standardize Components, Systems — The more commonality in plumbing, electrical, wall modules, finishes, the more cost and time savings, the more predictability. But we must balance standardization with flexibility (because every city, every site has its own quirks).

4. Align Capital & Impact — Encourage investment that values both financial return and social value. Workforce housing, as Oldivai is doing, shows that affordability under right design and scale can be sustainable.

5. Measure & Iterate — We need more pilot projects, more data, more transparency. What works? Where do costs creep in? How do logistics and transportation add or subtract value? Sharing best practices will accelerate learning.

Why It Matters to All of Us

Because this isn’t just about cheaper housing. It’s about lives, communities, stability. When housing costs overwhelm people, everything else suffers—health, education, commuting, stress. When key workers can’t live near where they work, both they and the communities they serve lose.

At Oldivai, my belief is that housing is foundational. If you don’t get housing right—affordable, timely, beautiful—so many downstream challenges keep getting worse.

If you’re interested, I’ll be sharing more Substack posts about what we’ve learned from Project Zero, where costs surprised us (pleasantly and otherwise), what regulatory obstacles we still see, and what the roadmap looks like for getting to many more modular projects like this.

Thanks for reading. I welcome feedback, stories from your city, or if you know of modular efforts locally we should highlight.

— Daniel Kaufman