Terner Labs

Innovators in housing construction and delivery face unique hurdles on the path to growth, including a complex regulatory landscape and financing challenges. But the worsening housing crisis and intensifying climate impacts make new approaches more important than ever. We created the Builders Lab to support visionary leaders in architecture, engineering, construction and hardware as they work to advance their innovations and change the housing landscape for the better. Today, we're thrilled to announce the selection of our first Builders Lab cohort, made up of six companies from across the United States: B.Public Prefab , Cloud Apartments, Cycle Retrotech, Hydronic Shell Technologies, MODSpdx, and Villa. They bring a diverse array of approaches, including panelized and volumetric manufacturing and strategies to scale deep energy retrofits, workforce development, and demand aggregation. We're grateful for support from strategic partners Eden Housing, Inc., Hilti Group, SCB, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Suffolk Construction, and funding from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and JPMorganChase. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/g-YkH4iC #constructiontech #contech #proptech #modular #modularhousing #modularconstruction #industrializedconstruction #architecture #engineering #construction #realestatedevelopment #design #manufacturing #realestate #climatetech #climate #climatechange #sustainability #sustainablebuildings #sustainableconstruction #housing #affordablehousing #housingaffordability #builtenvironment #mmc

Terner Labs is seeking a part-time Finance Manager to help us build systems and processes to expand our impact! We’re looking for candidates with experience managing financial functions at growing organizations, including reporting, accounting, budget development, and grants administration. If this sounds like you, check out the full description and apply: https://lnkd.in/gMw5QtM4 #accountingjobs #grantsadministration #financejobs #nonprofitjobs

Terner Labs is seeking a part-time Finance Manager to help us build systems and processes to expand our impact! We’re looking for candidates with experience managing financial functions at growing organizations, including reporting, accounting, budget development, and grants administration. If this sounds like you, check out the full description and apply: https://lnkd.in/gMw5QtM4 #accountingjobs #grantsadministration #financejobs #nonprofitjobs

With traditional single-family homeownership out of reach for many people in the United States, there's increasing interest in alternative models, from co-ops to community land trusts to ADUs. But how many people have taken advantage of these new options, and what percentage of the overall housing stock do they represent? This new resource from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco offers a window into the diverse array of homeownership types at play in today's housing landscape. We were delighted to see our friends and Housing Venture Lab alumni Frolic Community and @Parity featured in the brief, along with current Builders Lab cohort member Villa - just a few of the innovative companies advancing alternative entry points for low- and middle-income homeowners.

We had a blast at the Builders Lab retreat in San Francisco along with our partners at Cycle Retrotech! We were inspired by the program put together by Ben White and Tyler Pullen, introducing us to leaders and ideas at the forefront of industrialized construction in the US. We’re honored to be part of this first cohort of companies that are pioneering innovations to bring scalable solutions to the affordable housing crisis. Thank you to cohort members B.Public Prefab , MODSpdx, Villa, and Cloud Apartments for sharing your experience and wisdom with us. Special thanks to Ben Silverman and Hugo Bovea who couldn’t join us because they were taking care of business back in New York. And to Terner Labs and all the program partners we met in SF that are too many to list here. We’re excited to participate in this program over the next year, which comes at the perfect time for us as we plan our next steps towards deployment of Hydronic Shell at industrial scale. You can learn more about Builders Lab here: https://lnkd.in/gmMfunHy #affordablehousing #modularconstruction #retrofit

Can we use Lean principles to accelerate housing production? At last week's Builders Lab Retreat, our cohort members had the opportunity to explore this question in theory, practice, and play 😊 We had a rich discussion around how Lean can be used to facilitate efficiency and continuous improvement in the sales cycle, which is critical for early- to mid-stage companies like those in our cohort. The indomitable Iris D. Tommelein, Patricia Tillmann, Ph.D., CM-Lean and Rafael V. Coelho helped us grasp the Lean concept and explore its application across the diverse group of Builders Lab cohort organizations, first with an interactive lecture and then with a game involving manufacturing widgets out of different colored paperclips. Some of our entrepreneurs who manufacture volumetric and panelized modular housing may be able to diversify their product offering 🖇 We also enjoyed visiting the Walters & Wolf facility in Fremont, California. The Walters and Wolf team has successfully incorporated Lean principles in their curtain wall manufacturing organization, and I was especially impressed by their application of the “employee genius” concept - anyone at the organization can get time with leadership to explore process improvements 💡 This retreat was a great start to the Builders Lab program, and I couldn’t be more excited to be on this journey with our wonderful group of cohort members and the team here at Terner Labs 🏗 Tyler Pullen B.Public Prefab Cloud Apartments Cycle Retrotech Hydronic Shell Technologies MODSpdx Villa Edie Dillman Sean Roberts Tony Daniels, RA, David Goldstein, PE Nathan Young Curtis Wong Apoorva Pasricha #constructiontech #contech #proptech #modular #modularhousing #modularconstruction #industrializedconstruction #architecture #engineering #construction #realestatedevelopment #design #manufacturing #realestate #climatetech #climate #climatechange #sustainability #sustainablebuildings #sustainableconstruction #housing #affordablehousing #housingaffordability #builtenvironment

We were so excited to meet our first-ever Builders Lab cohort in person last week at our Bay Area retreat! The group came together from across the country to get to know each other and share common opportunities and challenges in scaling construction innovation. We toured local curtain wall manufacturer Walters & Wolf's facility in Fremont and spent the afternoon on Berkeley's campus with Program Advisors Iris D. Tommelein and Shanti Pless. As the program progresses, we're thrilled to be cultivating not just a small group of successful innovators but also a broader community of practice. Thank you to the many special guests who joined us for the week - we can't wait to keep building together!

Last Thursday, we co-hosted "Climate Migration: Getting Ahead of the Next Housing Crisis" with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, bringing together leaders in climate and housing to talk about what climate displacement will mean for our shared future. We were joined by author Abrahm Lustgarten, Kate Gordon of California Forward, Evelyn G. Sánchez-Shu of the American Institutes for Research, Saharnaz Mirzazad, AICP of ICLEI. and Dave Jones of UC Berkeley's Climate Risk Initiative. Thank you to the panelists for sharing their knowledge and determination to adapt our housing landscape to an uncertain and constantly shifting future 🌎

It was a joy last week for Tyler Pullen and I to welcome our inaugural Builders Lab cohort members to the Bay Area - B.Public Prefab (Edie Dillman and Jonah Stanford), Cloud Apartments (Apoorva Pasricha and Sara Torrelko), Cycle Retrotech (Tony Daniels, RA, Caitlin Martusewicz and Murali Nallamothu CPHC), Hydronic Shell Technologies (David Goldstein, PE, Akshay Ramani, PE and Rajeev Agarwal), MODSpdx (Nathan Young and Drew Shreiner), and Villa (Heather Miksch and Marly Carlisle). We had a blast getting to know each other as people and exploring common opportunities and challenges across each cohort member’s organization 🤗 Dinner events at Barcha in San Francisco and Jupiter in Berkeley enabled us to forge connections between our cohort members and our strategic partners, including Eden Housing, Inc., Hilti Group, SCB, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Suffolk Construction. Our strategic partners are leaders across architecture, engineering, construction and development, and it was great to see them interact with the exciting new players who comprise the Builders Lab cohort. We also had funders and friends of the Lab like Build It Green, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Ivory Innovations join us. Who knew pizza and pilaf would be perfect propellants for relationship-building? 🚀 More to come about our first ever Builders Lab retreat, including our day of deep diving into Lean thinking with Iris D. Tommelein - stay tuned! 🏗 Terner Labs Susie Criscimagna Antonia Elisa Soler Blasco Strachan Forgan, AIA RIBA Lisa Follman Karri Novak Shanti Pless Jeremy Madsen Amaya Bravo France Jenna Louie

Thanks Patricia for sharing an inside look at this week's first Builders Lab retreat! We loved meeting our first group of Builders Lab ventures in person, learning together, and making plans for the next few months of the program!