Modular Interface Standards CfOC-ICC-1XXX

Organizing the Marketplace for U.S. Offsite Construction

Administrative Location

New York Institute of Technology
School of Architecture and Design
1855 Broadway – New York campus (and Remote)

Project White Paper

“Open-Source Connectivity Standards for the U.S. Offsite Construction Industry” (February 2024)

See White Paper

Overview

Accelerating the adoption of offsite construction practices (and productized housing elements) by standardizing the connections between buildings and modules and between modules.

Working to unlock the power of collaboration to both address the U.S. affordable housing crisis and speed commercial office space conversions.

Speeding open-source interface standards through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and/or International Code Council (ICC) adoption. Sharing the benefits of a reorganized marketplace – to rapidly disseminate the production efficiencies and sustainability benefits.

Executive Summary

Problem

Ninety-seven percent of U.S. housing is delivered with service-based contracts, requiring high levels of coordination between an average of 23 subcontractors. The alternative to services is products. Delivering the most complex parts—the “tech core” of a home—as volumetric modular elements has not scaled in America, in spite of decades of effort. Individual firms have not established the technical norms needed to get these large products to work together.

Solution

Plugging a firm’s products into another firm’s host product is a well-known problem across many other industries. Following the model of how the USB Standard exploded the computer peripherals marketplace, The Center for Offsite Construction will author an open-source standard governing how any “tech-core” room-sized product can plug into the utilities of any host building. Through an ANSI-accredited, consensus-driven effort, “highway lanes” are defined for standardizing the utilities interface between building services and dwelling units.

Impact

  • Spur nationwide housing construction: reduce construction costs by 15–20 percent with kitchens, bathrooms, and utility rooms purchased as products, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price, and installed in minutes. Countless housing projects built that used to not pencil out.
  • Upgrade sustainability in construction: 30 percent less waste, with 40–60 percent less CO2, to deliver the same elements.
  • Paradigm change in design and construction: larger delivered products (with integrated electric, plumbing, etc.), delivered with manufacturing efficiency. Tier 1, 2, and 3 supply chain organization.
  • Innovations in education: as New York Tech grows to an R2 research institution, the Center prepares its undergraduate and graduate research fellows with the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit needed to find solutions for the larger world.

CfOC-ICC Collaboration

While the CfOC leads this initiative, a partnership agreement with the International Code Council (ICC) is currently in negotiation. This is a formative industry partnership that the CfOC is excited to pursue since:

  • Both organizations are ANSI-accredited Standards Developers (ASDs); and
  • Both organizations believe it is important to develop standards that support the expansion of industrialized and off-site construction of buildings; and
  • Both organizations believe one of the best ways to achieve higher levels of quality, sustainability, resilience, and affordability in buildings is through the promulgation of design standards for off-site construction component design through the development of ANSI American National Standards.

Project Pace and Funding

To speed standard writing, New York Tech’s CfOC assumes all of the direct costs incurred in the process of developing the Standards.

The standard is being developed in accordance with CfOC’s Center for Offsite Construction Consensus Procedures (the “Consensus Procedures”), which were approved by ANSI on February 11, 2025.

To help speed this process, the CfOC is circulating project-administering grant applications.

See Consensus Procedures

Learn More

For general inquiries and copies of these grant materials, please contact Jason Van Nest at jvannest@nyit.edu.

See CfOC Standards Development