Independent industry publication
Modular construction is a manufacturing business. Almost nobody runs it like one.
Volumetric Building covers the factory-built industry the way it deserves to be covered: with the numbers, the counter-evidence, and the sources on the page. No sponsors, no vendor content, no "up to 50%" without a citation.
The six pillars
All articles →The modular market is worth $111 billion. Or $20 billion. It depends who's counting.
Global forecasts for modular construction diverge by a factor of two. The disagreement is the story: definitions, not demand, decide the number — and North America is still stuck near five percent.
PILLAR 02 · ECONOMICSSchedule is proven. Cost is conditional. Financing is the real constraint.
"20–50% faster" and "up to 20% cheaper" are two different claims with two different evidence bars. The data behind each, the counter-evidence, and why the capital stack matters more than the crane.
PILLAR 03 · CODES & STANDARDSReciprocity, not regulation, is what modular codes are missing.
ICC/MBI 1200, 1205 and 1210 in the US, CSA A277 in Canada, MMC categories in the UK — the standards exist. What doesn't exist is a way for a module certified in one jurisdiction to be accepted in the next.
PILLAR 04 · PROCESSWhat a volumetric module actually is, and why the road decides its shape.
Volumetric vs panelised vs hybrid, the dimensions transport rules impose, how a line is sequenced, how much gets finished indoors, and what steel and timber each let you build.
PILLAR 05 · CASE STUDIESEleven modular projects, sorted by what they actually taught.
Katerra, Veev, 461 Dean Street, Factory_OS, Toronto's overrun, BC's 606 homes, Singapore's Clement Canopy, Hong Kong MiC, Croydon, AC NoMad and Boxabl — with the metrics and the lesson each one leaves.
PILLAR 06 · SUSTAINABILITYModular is usually greener. It is not automatically greener, and the bylaws are about to check.
Waste cuts of up to 90% and 56% fewer truck movements are real. So is the extra steel in a stackable module. With Vancouver now capping embodied carbon at permit, the industry will have to prove its LCA numbers.
Editorial position
Four things we believe the evidence supports
Each of these is argued, with sources, somewhere in the six pillars. We will revise them when the data changes, and say so.
- Schedule is proven. Cost is conditional.Twenty to fifty percent faster is well documented across projects and decades. "Up to 20% cheaper" is McKinsey's own exception case and depends on volume, repetition and logistics most North American projects don't have.
- Financing, not physics, is the binding constraint.Twenty-five-percent material deposits months before production, lower loan-to-cost ratios and unsecured factory work push equity forward. That explains slow adoption better than any technical limit.
- Standardisation beats ambition.The reliable wins — BC's temporary modular housing, Hong Kong MiC, Singapore PPVC — are narrow-scope, repeatable typologies with a committed client. The failures — 461 Dean, Katerra, AC NoMad — were "world's tallest" or "boil the ocean."
- Greener usually, not automatically.Waste and site-disruption reductions are real and large. Steel-framed modules can carry more upfront embodied carbon from redundant structure. Embodied-carbon bylaws will force the industry to prove its numbers.
The Module — monthly
One email a month. Every claim footnoted.
Market data, code changes in the US and Canada, factory openings and closures, and one deep read. No vendor sponsorships.