Innovation Doesn't Start with an Answer

Fresh Eyes on Modular by Jorie Wisnefski

I've spent years around lumber. I've participated in businesses and careers being built around wood. So, hearing people talk about replacing wood is a bit uncomfortable and unnatural, but so is modular construction. It’s new to me. Just like robots reclaiming lumber was. And digital lumber trading. But being open to innovation and learning new things means there isn't only one answer.

Innovation questions something old.

I've worked closely with wood experts and have seen firsthand what an incredible material it is. So when I first started reading about recent changes to the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act and the discussion around removing the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured housing, I wasn’t sure what to think.

Steel chassis are one of the visual and structural differences people associate with manufactured homes. Removing it could create new possibilities, but it also opens many questions about its replacement, permits, and costs.  

Being new to this side of housing, I didn’t want to form an opinion without understanding the conversation.

So I looked at two different perspectives.

Gary Fleisher, who many in the industry know from his years of challenging conventional thinking, encouraged readers to look beyond the regulation itself and consider what happens when an industry has the opportunity to rethink long-standing assumptions about how homes are designed, transported, and built—a much larger question than whether a chassis stays or goes. Gary framed it as new possibilities for housing innovation instead of simply as legislation changing a rule. 

Around the same time, mass timber expert Craig Rawlings shared research on modular mass timber that made a different but important point, suggesting that many of modular construction's obstacles aren't about the material. They're about financing, coordination, project delivery, and industry adoption. In other words, changing materials alone won't solve every problem.

I’m glad I read both points of view.

One says, "Don't be afraid to rethink what's possible."

The other says, "Don't assume changing materials automatically changes outcomes."

Both can be true.

For every industry, there’s attachment to the way things have always been done. Sometimes the old way is still the best way. Sometimes the old way is simply easier because it's routine.

As someone who's mostly written about lumber, the conversation is more personal. My instinct is to root for wood. But I've also spent enough time around innovators to know that progress doesn't mean we have to abandon what we love. Innovation forces us to examine whether we're solving today's challenges with yesterday's assumptions.

Maybe wood is still the best answer in many applications.

Maybe steel is.

Maybe engineered wood, hybrid systems, or something we haven't imagined yet will prove to be the better solution.

I don't have the answer.

But I know that curiosity has served every industry I've ever worked in better than absolutes.

The more people I meet in modular construction, the more I realize this industry isn't lacking passionate opinions. Most modular people are willing to ask hard questions.

As someone looking at modular through Fresh Eyes, I hope people keep asking better questions to move innovation forward.

_________________________________________

In this edition of Fresh Eyes on Modular, Jorie Wisnefski explores how innovation begins—not with answers, but with better questions. Drawing on perspectives from both Gary Fleisher and Craig Rawlings, she reflects on her own journey from the lumber industry into modular construction and considers how curiosity, rather than attachment to tradition or materials, can help move the industry forward.