Build Ahead
From Buildings to Systems: Edward Palka on Policy, Codes, and the Future of Offsite Construction
Blog | Mar 01, 2026
In this interview, Jason Van Nest speaks with CfOC Senior Research Fellow Edward Palka about the shift from treating housing as a design problem to treating it as a rules problem... one shaped by zoning, codes, contract structures, and public policy. Drawing on Edward’s work in housing policy, Operation Breakthrough, and the evolution of Handshake, the conversation argues that better building outcomes depend less on inventing new products than on reforming the regulatory and legal frameworks that govern how housing gets delivered. Together, they trace what it would take to make offsite construction and CTO-style procurement feel normal, scalable, and durable rather than exceptional.
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CfOC to Present “Handshake” at ACREL’s Construction Law Committee – March 2026
Center for Offsite Construction will present Handshake to the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL) Construction Law Committee at ACREL’s 2026 Mid-Year Meeting in Huntington Beach, California.
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From Call to Action to Consensus: Advancing the Connectivity Standard Through CfOC-ICC-1220
Blog | Feb 20, 2026
The CfOC has initialized the CfOC-ICC-1220 Consensus Committee to author a national interface standard for offsite construction. The revised whitepaper marks the beginning of this formal process.
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Scaling Pre-Approved Plans for Affordable Housing: Offsite Methods & Demand Aggregation
Blog | Feb 19, 2026
Vermont’s Homes for All Phase 3 program shows how state pre-approved home design catalogs can evolve to support offsite construction. It pairs traditional construction documents with pod-and-panel alternatives for the same homes. The Center for Offsite Construction helped inform the Phase 3 RFP in July, then is brainstorming with The Pew Charitable Trusts to translate Vermont’s progress into portable model legislative language for other states. We welcome other to help shape this practical path for reducing affordable housing costs by enabling repeatable pod-and-panel catalogs, collecting “apples-to-apples” cost data, and incentivizing adoption at scale.
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What's Critically Missing in the Road to Housing Act
Blog | Feb 16, 2026
The Center for Offsite Construction supports the ROAD to Housing Act’s intent to treat housing supply as urgent national infrastructure, and applauds its push toward repeatable, scalable delivery through offsite production, innovation grants, and pre-reviewed pathways. But the bill risks recreating fragmented, program-by-program pilots that still force manufacturers and builders into bespoke coordination—slowing adoption and blocking interoperability—because it implicitly gestures toward Configure-to-Order (CTO) without naming or building the market infrastructure CTO requires. To make the Act’s ambition cohere, Congress should explicitly fund CTO-enabling infrastructure: accelerate ANSI-accredited interface standards, pull conforming products through federal procurement first to create reliable demand and performance data, then use incentives to open those catalogs and interfaces to private builders at scale.
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The CfOC's Lessons from Advancing PreFab 2026
Blog | Feb 16, 2026
Fresh off Advancing PreFab 2026, Jason Van Nest sat down with Senior Research Fellow Connor Bailey to unpack what he heard while chairing the conference’s Business Strategy track... what executives are finally willing to admit, and what they’re still avoiding. Clearly, a growing share of the industry is actively looking past Engineer-to-Order pain management toward Configure-to-Order market logic, even if the catalogs, contracts, and installation discipline aren’t fully there yet. If 2025 was about tools and workflows, 2026 sounded like a scramble for a new business model, and the interview captures the tells.
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CfOC at Advancing Prefabrication 2026
Blog | Feb 01, 2026
The Center for Offsite Construction (CfOC) is pleased to announce that its Executive Director, Jason Van Nest, will serve as Track Chair for Track Seven: Business Strategy at Advancing Prefabrication 2026, taking place February 2–5 in Dallas, Texas. Jason will chair the Business Strategy track during the main conference days on Tuesday, February 3 and Wednesday, February 4.
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Steve DeWitt Named Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Offsite Construction (2025–2026)
Blog | Dec 12, 2025
The Center for Offsite Construction has named Steve DeWitt a Senior Research Fellow for 2025–2026, recognizing his leadership in rules-based design and building configurators that translate theory into working software for offsite construction. As owner of Custom Building Configurators and a co-author of the CfOC’s Configurator File Type whitepaper, Steve will contribute applied research defining open rule schemas, reference workflows, and interoperable configurator infrastructure that supports Configure-to-Order delivery. His work will help advance the CfOC’s Research Roadmap by bridging BIM and VDC environments with productized, manufacturing-informed systems that enable scalable, repeatable building.
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