On a windswept September morning in 2025, two very different construction sites—one nestled on England’s Thorney Island, the other tucked into a quiet Somerville, Massachusetts street—were buzzing with the same revolutionary spirit. The connection? Modular construction, a building method that’s racing ahead on both sides of the Atlantic, promising to upend how homes, barracks, and entire neighborhoods are built.
At Baker Barracks, Thorney Island, the modular specialist Reds10 has broken ground for three new single living accommodation (SLA) blocks, part of a sweeping £1 billion Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) initiative to modernize life for British Army personnel. According to Construction Management, the project will deliver 315 en-suite bedspaces—242 for junior ranks, 47 for senior non-commissioned officers, and 26 for junior officers—using modern methods of construction (MMC) designed for high energy efficiency. These blocks won’t just house soldiers; they’ll also showcase the latest in sustainable design, with photovoltaic panels, air source heat pumps, and a ‘smart’ energy management system to optimize power use. There’s even provision for the future: more than 400 car parking spaces, 20 of them with electric vehicle charging points.
“It’s exciting to see the start of preparatory works for this fantastic project as we work to improve military accommodation,” Warren Webster, DIO’s major programmes and projects Army programme director, told Construction Management. “Once complete, a significant number of the soldiers and officers based at Baker Barracks will enjoy brand new, comfortable and sustainable accommodation.”
Phil Cook, defence director at Reds10, echoed the enthusiasm: “Through our close working partnership with the DIO, Reds10 is pioneering advanced technologies and techniques to deliver exceptional value at Baker Barracks. Utilising industrialised construction to design and build innovative, sustainable and high-quality living spaces, we are transforming the living accommodation for the armed forces at pace.”
Across the Atlantic, another modular marvel was taking shape. At 13 Gilman Street in Somerville, Massachusetts, a triple-decker home—a staple of New England’s working-class neighborhoods—was being assembled from 24 prefabricated modules, complete with toilets already installed. The feat? Erecting all three stories in just four days, a pace that would make the amateur builders of Boston’s turn-of-the-century housing boom do a double take.
The company behind this speed is Reframe, a startup that’s betting big on the promise of modular construction to solve America’s housing woes. According to Slate, Reframe’s founder, Vikas Enti, believes the time is finally right for this long-promised revolution. Traditional construction costs are soaring, fabrication technology is more advanced than ever, and with housing prices reaching crisis levels, “the planets are aligned for modular construction.”
Reframe claims that while it currently takes about 150 minutes of human labor to build each square foot of a small multifamily building the old-fashioned way, its process can do it in 64 minutes—aiming for a future where it’s just six minutes per square foot. That’s the kind of leap that could turn a year-long build into a one-week wonder. Their factory in Andover, Massachusetts, is a compact 20,000 square feet, brimming with robotic arms and flexible assembly lines. “The fundamental way in which factory-built homes have worked as an industry is, you build these massive 100,000-to-500,000-square-foot factories that are trying to build one type of product,” Enti explained to Slate. Reframe’s smaller, more nimble facility can quickly adapt to local building codes and unique site requirements, a must in the patchwork world of American zoning laws.
The Somerville project’s story is a case study in both the promise and the pitfalls of modular construction. The plan was to assemble the building in June, but city permit delays pushed the delivery of modules to September. Even then, only one truck driver showed up on the first day—hardly the seamless logistics one might expect. Still, by the Friday after Labor Day, the final modules had rumbled down the narrow street, and a 200-foot crane was swinging bedrooms and kitchens over power lines to their new home. The client, affordable housing executive Kathy McGilvray, was watching the future unfold from her own front porch. When finished, her parents will live on the ground floor, her sister on the middle, and a rental unit will occupy the top. At $300 per square foot—$1.2 million for the whole triplex, with her parents’ unit coming in at $400,000—Reframe’s offer beat traditional builders and even the cost of renovating McGilvray’s existing home. “OK mom and dad—your bedrooms are here!” buzzed the family group text as each module was craned into place.
The next few weeks will see workers connecting wires and pipes, affixing exterior cladding, and finishing flooring to ensure that no one can tell a room was once two separate boxes. Enti is adamant: “Our feet are so sensitive,” he told Slate. “He doesn’t want anyone to know that a room was once made up of two separate boxes.”
Why is modular construction suddenly seeing such momentum? The answer lies in a confluence of economic, technological, and social forces. Construction productivity in the U.S. has actually declined over the past 50 years, a baffling trend given the leaps in efficiency seen elsewhere. Add to that rising material costs, labor shortages, and the urgent need for affordable housing, and the appeal of factory-built homes becomes clear. Modular construction offers faster build times, less exposure to weather delays, and the potential to open up construction jobs to a more diverse workforce—including women, caregivers, and those unable to work traditional site hours.
There are, of course, challenges. Even the most perfectly prefabricated modules must eventually brave the real world, facing everything from local permit bureaucracy to the logistical headaches of moving oversized loads through narrow city streets. And as the collapse of high-profile modular startups like Katerra showed, the path from promise to profitability can be treacherous.
Yet, as the projects at Baker Barracks and Gilman Street show, modular construction is no longer just a futuristic fantasy. It’s delivering real buildings, for real people, right now—whether it’s soldiers in West Sussex or families in Somerville. The question isn’t if modular will change the way we build, but just how quickly—and how far—it will go.
For now, both sides of the Atlantic are watching these new modular blocks rise, wondering if this time, the revolution will stick.