Build Ahead
From Handshake to Hardware to Data Standard: How Legal Ideas Became Machine-Readable
Blog | Apr 07, 2026
The Center for Offsite Construction is developing the open .cto file format to make the legal and commercial lifecycle of Configure-to-Order construction products machine-readable. The draft specification records price quotes, delivery commitments, title, risk of loss, insurance coverage, chain of custody, legal acceptance, and warranty activation as products move from manufacturing into real property. Building on CfOC’s *From Handshake to Hardware* whitepaper, the .cto standard aims to create clearer transactions, stronger warranties, and interoperable digital infrastructure for offsite construction.
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What AI’s “Hardware Lottery” Reveals About Construction
Blog | Apr 03, 2026
A concept from AI research offers a useful lens for construction. Just as some ideas in artificial intelligence succeeded because they fit the hardware and software of their era, construction methods often succeed because they fit the incumbent delivery stack of contracts, codes, labor practices, software, review pathways, and interfaces. This essay argues that the future of offsite construction depends not only on better products, but on building the standards, agreements, and digital infrastructure that let better methods prove themselves.
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Big, New Configurator File Type Progress: announcing the .cto file type's Specification, Git Repository, & Updated Whitepaper
Blog | Apr 02, 2026
CfOC's April 2026 Rule Layer whitepaper releases the expanded .cto Configurator File Type schema — covering offsite product configuration, installation sequencing, logistics coordination, and chain-of-custody tracking in a single open, vendor-neutral file format. Built on the legal framework established in From Handshake to Hardware, the schema encodes UCC-aligned mateline definitions, warranty activation states, and firm MSRP pricing as first-class fields. The working schema is live on GitHub; formal standardization through CfOC's ANSI-accredited process is underway.
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Details on Why Supply Matters. (Not Just the System That Produces It.)
Blog | Mar 14, 2026
The Center for Offsite Construction reflects on Supply Skepticism Revisited by Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Katherine O’Regan, a timely essay arguing that adding housing supply improves affordability by lowering rents, slowing rent growth, and reducing pressure across the market. The CfOC agrees that housing supply matters, but argues that the deeper challenge is building the production infrastructure needed to turn permission into delivered housing at speed, scale, and with repeatability. This post explores where the essay overlaps with the CfOC’s Future of Design & Delivery platform—and why standards, legal frameworks, product rules, and digital coordination tools are essential to making abundant housing possible.
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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
Blog | Feb 23, 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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