If you didn’t make it to Chicago, you missed a great event. There were a lot of smart people in the room and some interesting discussions and ideas were shared around thinking like an industrial designer, changing consumer demographics, build-to-rent business models, quality and risk management, leveraging BIM and other business management technologies, labor and trade issues, alternative building strategies, sustainable and smart development, comfort and health, and what homebuilding companies may look like in the future.
Over the next few months, we’ll be rolling out key nuggets of content from the event: videos, raw notes from the sessions, best practice snapshots, analyses of trends and opportunities, questions posed that we may address as a group, and other tools you can leverage in your business.
Here’s just a taste of what’s to come. We’ll share what we can, but you really had to be there to get the full effect.
From this page, click on the image below to access our photo gallery on Flickr, and click on the session descriptions to download presentation materials.
- STRATEGIC INNOVATION: DESIGNING NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN HOUSING – Richard Watson and Chris Parlato of leading firm Essential Design share how to think like an industrial designer and take advantage of megatrends as a provider of the world’s single largest consumer product, housing
- EVOLVING AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS: MAKING SENSE OF THE RESEARCH – Peter Dennehy of Meyers Research LLC and Amanda Stinton of the National Association of REALTORS® talk about today’s changing consumers and what they’re looking for in housing
- SELL, RENT, LEASE, ASSIGN: CHANGING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS – Matt Blank of Blank Property Group, Sunti Kumjim of MBK Homes and George Casey (on behalf of Rich Rodriguez formerly of Waypoint Homes) share their insights on real deals, community benefits and financial opportunities behind for-rent housing
- BALANCING THE QUALITY + RISK EQUATION – Glenn Cottrell of IBACOS, George Casey of Stockbridge Associates, Scott Sedam of TrueNorth Development and Alan Mooney of Criterium Engineers provide expert perspectives on quality management in housing
- BUILDER SNAPSHOTS IN QUALITY MANAGEMENT – Dave Evert of Veridian Homes and Bill Rectanus of Thrive Home Builders discuss the struggles and triumphs they’ve had managing quality within their respective building companies. Coming Soon: We’ll post our video interview with Rich Rodriguez—uncovering lessons learned from 25+ years focused on driving quality management in housing
- THE NEW AGE OF BIM – Michael Gustafson of Autodesk and Tim Beckman of CG Visions explore how BIM has evolved dramatically over the last 10 years and best practices for integrating BIM with the front and backend of your business. Be advised Tim’s presentation is HUGE, as it contains video. You’ll be redirected to Hightail for download.
- SMART CITIES: MERGING SUSTAINABILITY, BIG DATA + CITY PLANNING – Peter Bronski shares how Panasonic Enterprise Solutions is looking at sustainable housing and connectivity holistically—leveraging lessons learned from a major development in Japan in the City of Denver and, potentially, other cities around the U.S.
- ALTERNATIVES TO TRADE-BUILT HOUSING – Our speakers took things from current to future innovation—discussing panelization, montage construction, and the potential for 3D printing to change the face of architecture and construction in housing. Jim Lambach of Covestro set the stage, followed by Andrew Dey of Unity Homes sharing his experience combining panelization and modular construction techniques. Platt Boyd of Branch Technology and Chris Hurst and Daniel Caven of WATG, a leading architectural firm, wrapped things up with the science behind cellular fabrication and an overview of a 3D printed demonstration home. They shared some cool video, so we’ll direct you to Hightail again for download.
- COMFORT + HEALTH: DESIGN STRATEGIES FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE HOMES – Aaron Holden of iEngineer and Tim Beggs of IBACOS discussed innovation in air distribution system design, including site-specific HVAC design planning and a plug-n-play ductwork system in development.
- COMFORT + HEALTH: QUANTIFYING PERFORMANCE BEYOND ENERGY EFFICIENCY – Tim wrapped up the comfort discussion with an update on the Thermal Comfort Rating Metric, a rating system and methodology IBACOS is proposing to help assess, assure and properly value a home’s ability to deliver comfort in the same way that HERS provides a benchmark for energy efficiency
- FUTURE OF HOUSING – Last but not least, members of the IBACOS team shared a vision for the future by introducing Summit attendees to the team behind a whole new way of thinking about housing—exploring their roles, how they think, the unique value they provide to their customers, and the benefits they see as a leading-edge building business.