The construction industry has a conundrum. It’s one of the few industries in the United States struggling to improve productivity.

“We’re actually looking at a crazy dichotomy where construction over the past number of years has actually lost productivity,” said Jonathan Orpin, founder and president of New Energy Works Timberframers and Pioneer Millworks – both based in Southeast Portland.

That’s one of the fundamental drivers, he added, behind continued exploration of prefabrication in construction. Another reason is the worsening housing crisis across the country. Many project teams are seeking new ways to drive down the costs of development, whether residential or commercial.

While prefabrication of various building components is taking place in piecemeal fashion across the industry, one specific solution could be found in building enclosure systems. Pre-panelization is slowly gaining popularity, in part because project designs are being developed virtually with building information modeling (BIM) software.

This topic was explored Thursday at Pioneer Millworks’ warehouse as part of Design Week Portland. There, Orpin was joined by Nathan Young of Mods PDX, a manufacturer of modular buildings, and Geoff Sosebee of Lever Architecture, who has designed several cross-laminated timber projects involving prefabrication.

“Wider use of BIM, automation, it’s coming, but slower than almost any other industry,” Orpin said. “Developers are pushing this need too, and in the last few years we’re finally seeing a big investment.”

Orpin pointed to Katerra. The Bay Area startup, around four years old, is now worth $1.2 billion. It dived headfirst into offsite construction as part of an end-to-end business model that includes design, materials, procurement, offsite manufacturing and construction.

As for modular construction, Young said, the engineering goal is to reduce to a minimum the number of prefabricated components needed to complete a building. This also makes prefabrication better suited for multistory buildings with repetitive units or those with remote locations or where construction is particularly disruptive.

“Our belief is that 80 percent of every building is exactly the same,” Young said. “And the more we can standardize that, the more we can use offsite production to lower those costs.”

Part of the problem in finding more efficiency in prefabrication – whether panelized walls, cross-laminated timber or other types of systems – comes on the factory floor. In terms of both technology and scale, there is much remaining to be desired.

“We’ve been doing pre-panelized roof and wall systems since 1993, and it’s evolved since then, but we’re still working in a reasonably rough shop setting as opposed to what I saw during my recent trip to Europe,” Orpin said.

In Western Europe, at least, he added, roughly 35 percent of single-family homes are built using offsite construction; in the United States that figure is less than 1 percent.

That number is driven by manufacturing efficiencies unseen in the U.S. In one European factory, Orpin said, the average production rate is 150 single-family homes per year using a labor force of eight production floor workers and four office staffers. The use of automated storage and nailing machines, robotics and other technology accounts for additional labor, time and fiscal savings.

“It was a very telling moment,” he said.

The industry is still fighting the cost issue, Young added, even though prefabrication ensures better quality by virtue of components being built to higher tolerances and in controlled settings instead of a job site open to the weather.

“We haven’t mechanized to the full advantage of where we could be compared to Europe,” he said. “And part of that is that it requires standardization which we don’t have in America; we’re not quite there yet.”

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A new retail store will open tomorrow in the historic Meier & Frank Building in downtown Portland. Japanese retailer MUJI will debut the 11,000-square-foot flagship store, its first location in the Pacific Northwest, in a ground-floor space fronting Southwest Fifth Avenue.

The opening follows a three-month tenant improvement project by contractor R&H Construction, which was tasked with completing the build-out in time for a Black Friday opening. Crews worked long hours to meet that deadline.

“We shaved off a few weeks by working around the clock and expediting the schedule,” said Adam Rainey, R&H Construction director of business development; he oversaw the project from an executive level. “It was kind of the only way we were able to accomplish it.”

The space was designed by Super Potato, a Tokyo-based firm responsible for producing the store concept. Bora Architects served as the architect of record, adapting Super Potato’s concept package into a complete plan set.

“Bora did an amazing job tying the whole thing together to make it a permittable project,” Rainey said.

The design is intended to combine local elements with the retailer’s established aesthetic. The space features over 120 old-growth reclaimed timbers sourced from Pioneer Millworks, the bulk of which originated in Oregon. All of the reclaimed timber was uniquely graded by a structural grader, after which KPFF Consulting Engineers determined how best to attach the pieces to the slab and the ceilings in order to ensure that the pieces were structurally sound. Axiom Custom Products was charged with staining, cutting and installing the reclaimed timbers, in addition to handling the project’s fixture package.

MUJI joins Oregon State University as a tenant in space formerly occupied by Macy’s at the Meier & Frank Building. The project was a joint development between Chicago-based Sterling Bay and KBS Realty Advisors of Newport Beach, California. Turner Construction was the general contractor for the core and shell renovation, which encompassed the basement through fifth floors of the building and was designed by Bora Architects.

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The second annual design-build challenge was held Monday, Sept. 3, along the Eastbank Esplanade in Portland. It pitted teams of designers, trades workers and contractors against each other in a quest to create the most creative project possible while working against the clock and under a strict set of rules covering theme, materials and more.

This year’s competition featured 27 teams of four people each, up from 14 a year ago, each competing to craft a project that fit the theme: “A Seat At The Table.” The interpretations were left up to the teams, which had just 24 hours to prep for the competition after the theme was revealed to them. Further, the teams were limited to a strict set of reclaimed building materials, both wood and metal.

Judges made up of fellow building industry professionals ultimately chose the creation of the team representing Portland general contractor Engaging Environments as the winner.

According to a synopsis of the project, the team’s take on “A Seat At The Table” was a “unique opportunity to examine empowerment within the current structure of our social-political system.” Half the table is therefore not seen on the surface. Instead, that half holds the rest of the table up, expressing “strength and resiliency.”

The half providing support “represents a conglomeration of workers of all genders, multi-ethnicities, and minorities that hold up the table but whose voice is often unheard.”

The seat itself represents the “patriarchal oligarchy” that we all live in.

Team Engaging Environments produced a design so compelling it also earned a viewer’s choice award. Second place in the judging went to a project from Portland contractor Neil Kelly Company.

Check out photos of this unique event below.

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