NSF Engines Development Award: Developing innovative solutions for next-generation factory-built housing (IN, MI)

This NSF Regional Innovation Engine Development award is focused on further developing and solidifying an ecosystem that can transform the housing industry in the US by scaling up production in factories of high-quality, sustainable single and multi-family housing. The current US housing infrastructure sector is in crisis. Plagued by a chronic scarcity of affordable and available homes, rapidly rising costs, the largest home construction labor shortage in over twenty years, and pre-Industrial Revolution production processes that prohibit innovation and efficiency, a drastically different paradigm is required to ensure we have the high-quality housing stock available to provide for the safety, security, and well-being of all US families.

The NextHouse vision is a future where housing in the US is primarily built in factories and delivered as integrated and fully-engineered products enabling greater affordability, sustainability, resiliency, health outcomes, and equity. The NextHouse innovation ecosystem will be a central fixture in the Midwest tech corridor to produce disruptive technologies, spur new business, and drive economic growth.

Based in a region with a glut of legacy cities and corresponding racial disparities, it will catalyze much-needed economic growth and improved employment opportunities through an expanded factory-built housing industry. Driven by coordinated Indiana and Michigan innovation and workforce development, a fully-automated, and scaled-up factory-built housing industry will deliver innovative and customer-responsive products that improve sustainability, quality of life, and housing equity with a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

The award will be used to launch and grow a NextHouse organization. The leadership team will start by developing procedures and programs for engaging and strengthening partnerships, including a process for soliciting and reviewing proposals for activities by partners that strengthen the ecosystem. A fee-paying NextHouse Industry Consortium will be established as a joint venture with the Purdue Center for High Performance Buildings to facilitate development of direct pathways (i.e., a technology pipeline) to partner companies for deployment of NextHouse technologies and processes.

Concepts from R&D and workforce development partners will be funded that demonstrate technology pipeline benefits to strengthen industry relationships. NextHouse will also fund partner proposals to support assessments of opportunities for establishing new regional factory-built housing factories. During the award, partner workshops will be held to: i) identify and prioritize needs for R&D, translation to practice, workforce development, and DEIA; ii) engage regional stakeholders (e.g. housing authorities, economic development agencies, advanced manufacturing partnerships) to identify federal/state initiatives and plan pilot sites in Indiana and Michigan; and iii) grow industry and venture capital participation.

The project team will also work closely with industry partners to identify important features for facilities that will ultimately be developed for the planned NextHouse Headquarters, including the HEET (Home Environmental Evaluation Testing) Laboratory that will enable controlled testing of modular housing at scale.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.