Breakthrough: Using Structural Insulated Panels in Workforce Housing

So today was a really big day for my workforce housing design team.

About 8 years ago we began experimenting with structural insulated wall panels in workforce housing.

We began with an easy design – a one-story duplex building – and tallied up the costs/benefits of building with panels over traditional stick-built framing. What we learned was this: By spending a little more on the panels (about $4,000/unit) we were able to attract $11,000/unit of capital waiting on the sidelines to invest in ENERGY EFFICIENT workforce housing.

So we began tinkering with a more complex design – a three-story walk-up garden apartment building. Our team came up with a design that ended up attracting over $19,000/unit of capital for the first of these projects: Davidson’s Landing in Kansas City.

Today we set our first panels at Davidson’s Landing. Our construction guys make it look easy, but trust me – A LOT of coordination and hard work went into planning this.

Cheers to my workforce housing design team. You rock!!!

Link to photo album found here.