Last year, modular construction startup Assembly OSM completed its first one-bedroom apartment development using a digital manufacturing method it calls "post-modular" construction. This week, the 3-year-old company announced a $38M funding round that will grow its business, making modular construction parts that it compares to Ikea furniture components. "What we're doing is we're looking at the best pieces of advanced manufacturing, the way that Boeing builds airplanes or Toyota builds cars," Assembly OSM CEO Andrew Staniforth said. The modular construction industry has thrived for decades overseas and is often touted as a way to cut time, cost and waste from projects, three factors that have increased significantly in importance in the last few years, but it is not without its challenges or its downsides. 
If there was ever a moment for modular construction to make it big in North America, now would seem to be the time. Construction costs have skyrocketed, materials are often hard to find, residential properties are in short supply and the pressure is on to improve sustainability in…  Read the full story here. | 
