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Apartment Building

About Us

Offsite Dirt is a media and event company that showcases all the current news, techniques, technology, influencers, and conversations in offsite construction. This form of construction encompasses volumetric, modular, prefab, panelization, and single and/or multi-trade assemblies.  

 

Offsite Dirt has a two-pronged mission: to inform the construction industry and the general public on the intricacies of what’s currently happening in the fast-growing offsite construction field, and to provide a meeting place for offsite construction professionals where information, opinions and resources can be freely exchanged.  

 

While we will frequently highlight specific players in this industry, Offsite Dirt encourages the discussion and exploration of all offsite construction companies, products and techniques in general. We are committed to finding the best way forward for our industry, and the world, as a whole. 

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The adoption of offsite construction in projects requires a complete overhaul of the business models and structures of much of the traditional construction industry. Old job types and firms will die out completely, while new ones will form and flourish.  

This is a pivotal moment in the history of the construction industry, where what happens in the next 5-10 years will set the stage for the rest of its future. Many recognize the unique potential this situation holds and are rushing to create the products, systems, and companies that will win and become the new standard “way things are done.” 

The sudden influx of people and companies attempting to “prove themselves” in this space is the perfect prerequisite for the launch of a media and event platform. People are hungry to get the word out on what they do and how they do it, and to learn about other potential collaborators and/or competition.  

 

Offsite Dirt will be the place where that happens.  

Contributors

High Performance Homes Enthusiast 

Creative eXperience Pioneer

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Editor-in-Chief

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Andrea Metcalf is an experienced journalist and media professional with more than three decades of communication, television production and social media. She brings editorial and digital background experience and is a licensed real estate agent who understands B2B and B2C needs.

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Prefab Trail Blazer

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Edie Dillman is CEO and co-founder of B.PUBLIC Prefab—a component-based high-performance building company that prioritizes energy reduction, carbon-positive materials, housing creation, and professional collaboration. As co-founder of a decidedly disruptive woman-owned Benefit-Corp., she is committed to systems change and the rapid adoption of solutions through craftsmanship, innovative design, and building science. In her previous work at Innovate + Educate, she worked nationally on systematic problems in the education-to-workforce fields seeking critical change for equitable workforce pathways as director of communications and strategy.

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Supply Chain Virtuoso

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Sneha Kumari is a Supply Chain Operations leader with over 12+ yrs of experience driving operational excellence across industries like Industrial Manufacturing, Automotive, Oil and Gas, Prefabrication manufacturing, and Retail. She is a Lean Six Sigma certified professional with a decade of experience leading Quality, Supply chain, and Operational activities. She was also recognized as one of the few Operations Women Leaders by McKinsey and Co. for her experience in the field of operations and is recognized as one of the Top 50 women to follow in ERP by SourceDay. She is a huge advocate of Lean and believes in using Lean tools to drive continuous improvement across multi-million $$ projects she has led throughout her career. Apart from this, she loves nerding on Circular economy, ESG initiatives and advocates for the power of the Supply Chain in making Circularity happen. When not working, she loves dancing with her kids and taking them out in nature!

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Passivhaus Consultant, Building Captain

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Owner, Creator and Passivhaus Consultant at Intelligent Membranes, Adam White lives and breathes Passivhaus building standards. Through his suite of companies, Intelligent Membranes included, he is driving environmentally forward-thinking initiatives into the building sector.

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Modular Construction Expert,
Founder OSD

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Audree M Grubesic, an offsite construction expert and the owner of Modular Sure Site. This consulting Construction company collaborates with traditional builders and land developers looking to build their first offsite project. She has first-hand experience of project management on site of their offsite projects. Over the past 20+ years, she has excelled in marketing, sales, new business development, and homebuilding.

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High Performance Homes Enthusiast 

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Karen Benner is a construction management consultant, GREEN Realtor, and owner of Clayton Avenue Consulting.  Real estate development that serves People & Planet is at the heart of all of her work.  In 25-years she has contributed to the construction of over 3,000 homes in five states. She holds several professional accreditations in sustainability, and has expertise in project management, product development, risk-mitigation & operational excellence.  Karen is a connector, problem-solver, knowledge-seeker.

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Home Performance Detective and Advocate

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Joe Konopacki loves solving puzzles and helping people understand homes, when he isn’t mountain biking or spending time with his large family.  He is a Building Consultant and nationally recognized building science trainer and presenter with over 25 years of experience in inspections, analysis/diagnosis, renovations, and new construction of single family & multi-family buildings.  Since founding Insight Property Services, Inc. in 2009, Joe has inspected and tested thousands of homes, trained hundreds of BPI certified professionals, and helped countless homeowners and building professionals resolve issues and make homes better.  Distilling complex topics and using fun analogies, Joe helps the non-technical understand homes.  

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Community Builder with a PH, The Unforgotten One

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Sy Safi is a national and international award winning Certified Passive House Consultant and Certified Passive House Builder. Since starting Ubergreen Spaces + Homes approaching 20 years ago, Sy has dedicated their work to best design and best building practices that are socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative adopting the International Living Future’s mission, Passive House and WELL Building as a standard. This early commitment required Sy to create new trades crews to self-perform these new high-performance divisions and scopes of work. 

 

Sy also started a social impact ‘Community Builder’ (Development) company, Re:land Group, with three partners focusing on forgotten and underserved neighborhoods. 

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Creative eXperience Officer 

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Mark Wille is the Director of Building Experiences for US Engineered Wood Tstud™ who designs and manufactures Thermally Broken Structural Framing of various measurements.  

Being an avid materials geek/representative for many years you may have seen him present at The Chicago Center for Green Technology a Trade Show or as a resident carpenter for Craftsman, Tools EXPERIENCE live video series.  Speaking at local Universities and working directly with the students is a passion he continues to do each semester, searching for those to carry the torch and continue pursuit of knowledge in the field of construction and sustainability.

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Creative eXperience Pioneer

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Shaun St-Amour is very passionate about resilient prefab passive houses. He is the VP of Operations for Clay Construction Inc. Before this position, he was the Outreach and Education Associate with 475 High Performance Building Supply. He graduated from The University of British Columbia with a degree in Wood Products Processing. He is a certified Passive House Tradesperson. Shaun also obtained a Building Construction Technology Associate Certificate at BCIT while working at Viceroy Homes and BOSA Construction. He was a general contractor under Footprint Sustainable Housing Corp. Shaun has also been involved with the Passive House Accelerator.  If Shaun isn’t talking about passive houses, he’s playing Lego with his daughters or working on his hubby-do list.

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Building Science Enthusiast

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Aron Jones, RSE, is passionate about building durable and efficient buildings. Putting function first back into the build! Co-founder and supervisor at Big Dog Construction Inc. Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada.

With his first career in the military leading him to become a Construction Tech, Aron has been a teacher and mentor to apprentices in the carpentry trade for many years. Receiving his Carpentry Red Seal in 2002,

 

Aron has always endeavored to build better whenever possible.  Passing on his skills and knowledge to others, particularly the next generation, is very important to him. He co-founded International Flashing Awareness Day in 2021, an annual Instagram event to demonstrate why flashings are important to a building and what happens when they are not installed or used properly. He is co-host of BS* and Beer Canada every month online. One of Aron’s favorite sayings is, “I like to be the dumbest guy in a room full of BS* people”. (*Building Science)

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Wall System Maestro, Innovative Platform Builder

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John Fay is the CEO & Founder of Låda Cube, a building tech company accelerating the world's transition to reusable, demountable, and environmentally friendly new construction solutions. Låda Cube is a design & manufacture leader of innovative self-contained and self-standing lego-like modular wall systems.

Låda Cube's products eliminate traditional barriers of buildout costs, making it possible to build without conventional traditional constraints. Låda Cube is a worldwide leader in the building platform for the 21st century.

According to a recent survey by the Offsite Construction Council of the National Institute for Building Science, 93 percent of respondents in the fields of architecture, engineering, contracting, and ownership reported implementing various forms of off-site construction processes within the last 12 months. These processes included precast concrete, wall panels, MEP systems, bathroom pods, and permanent modular building construction. OffsiteDirt.com is dedicated to providing professionals in the Offsite Construction industry with the latest, relevant, and valuable information on trends, technology, design, volumetric approaches, events, panel discussions, and more. Subscribe to receive OffsiteDirt.com updates directly to your inbox every week.

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