Architecture, And: Why the Modular Revolution Keeps Not Arriving

How can treating buildings as configurable products and embracing manufacturing precision rescue off-site construction from decades of unfulfilled promises?

This week on Practice Disrupted, host Evelyn Lee explores why factory-built prefabrication has always seemed "almost here" yet perpetually delayed. Evelyn sits down with Alexandra Donovan, Director of Product Design at The American Housing Corporation. Evelyn and Alexandra trace her journey from growing up immersed in the profession to cutting her teeth in Cornell's fabrication shop and helping design Anabel's Grocery, a student-run store addressing food insecurity, where she first designed to a real budget.

The conversation dives into Alexandra's time at SHoP Architects and her six-year tenure at Assembly OSM, the modular startup incubated within SHoP. She details the milestone stacking of 147 St. Felix in Fort Greene, where eight modules were stacked in a single day without even needing a site dumpster, alongside the sobering on-site completion challenges she calls "death by a thousand cuts". She also shares how the Design for Freedom Summit, led by Grace Farms Foundation, shaped her work, including a tool built with SHoP that flags forced labor risk in building materials. The discussion examines why prefab struggles to scale against a risk-averse industry, high capital costs, and factory overhead, leading into Alexandra's current work at The American Housing Corporation developing panelized townhome systems using magnesium oxide (MgO) structural insulated panels.

Ultimately, Alexandra envisions a future where treating buildings as high-quality products, complete with configurable libraries, continuous improvement cycles, and post-occupancy data, frees architects from tedious grunt work to focus on creative problem-solving.

"If some portion of the industry shifts more towards treating buildings as products, not as commodities, but as products where we really invest our time into the design details… I think that the role of the architect will shift more towards managing product libraries." - Alexandra Donovan

This episode serves as a vital blueprint for anyone curious about the intersection of design, climate, and manufacturing, showing that the handoff from factory to site, and the people on both sides of it, is where much of the work still lies.

Guests:

Alexandra Donovan is the Director of Product Design at The American Housing Corporation, where she works on panelized townhome systems designed for missing-middle urban density. Trained as an architect, she started her career at SHoP before spending six years at Assembly OSM, the modular startup incubated within SHoP Architects, starting as a designer across nearly every scope, then owning walls, ceilings and floors as products, before guiding overall product development. An alumna of Cornell University, where she worked in the fabrication shop and helped design the student-run Anabel's Grocery and later joined its leadership team, Alexandra is deeply passionate about systems thinking, ethical sourcing in building material supply chains, and connecting digital design to how things actually get manufactured and built.

This episode is especially for you if:

You want to explore why modular and prefabricated housing has historically struggled to scale and what it takes to succeed in factory-built construction.

You are curious about the inner workings of startup-incubated manufacturing like Assembly OSM and panelized housing at The American Housing Corporation.

You want to understand the critical importance of supply chain transparency and combating forced labor in building materials.

You are looking for practical insights on how on-site completion challenges ("death by a thousand cuts") impact off-site construction.

You believe that treating buildings as configurable products can free architects from grunt work and elevate design innovation.