Thinking Inside the Box Podcast
In this mini-series of Thinking Inside the Box, Julia Hansen, Director of Business Development and Partnerships at GreenStaxx, is hosting conversations with key players in the development and deployment of GreenStaxx's triple-decker building design. This design is one of two unit design libraries that GreenStaxx offers to developers.
Our goal here is to share our experience using standardized, replicable unit designs so that we can help advance the modular multifamily industry. In this episode, Julia talks with Gwen Noyes, the COO of GreenStaxx.
(Read the full interview below or watch it on YouTube)
Julia
Welcome to the podcast, Gwen.
Gwen Noyes
Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Julia
Gwen is our COO and the principal designer of our triple-decker line of unit designs. She is here to tell us about her experience developing this product line and what she's learned as the designer and co-developer of two buildings that used this triple-decker design. Gwen has also spent over 30 years on the board of the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust.
Julia
So, Gwen, what can you tell me about the genesis of the triple-decker design? We will discuss two projects today: one in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the other in Lowell. But before we talk about the actual deployment of these designs in real-life projects, what can you tell me about how your vision came about for a standardized triple-decker design?
Gwen Noyes
Well, several things brought me there. One is living in a city like Cambridge and primarily thinking about Boston, where there's this ongoing cry, we need more housing, we need more affordable housing, and we need to do what we can to work with the existing communities. And you don't have to do much touring around the city to know that there are a lot of sites, particularly in Boston, that are vacant and where there has been a triple-decker, but it's been torn down or burned down, and then there are holes in the fabric of the community. So, that was a very obvious observation.
I have a little bit of a history thinking about this because I lived in a tiny little triple-decker. They called them Father, Son, and Holy Ghosts in Philadelphia, and they're ubiquitous. They were row houses with shared walls and windows in front and back. I was very happy during my graduate years in this little house that cost $14,000, and it was just fine.
It is the thought that we can build housing that's energy-efficient and particularly well suited to modular building, which is what we're doing now. And it feels to me like a product that has multiple opportunities to be not just a single triple-decker but also a double triple-decker and row houses and with a bit of cleverness in design, making something that could be adaptable to the modular building process and made more energy efficient and cost-effective. It just seemed like that's an opportunity that was there for me to explore.
Julia
OK, so this began as a conceptual exercise for you. How did you find your first project site for this design in Cambridge, Massachusetts?
Gwen Noyes
Well, that's the funny thing. I was working in our office on this design. It happened that we, Arthur, my husband, and my partner, were interviewed on Channel 5 here in Boston for a project that was being built and completed in Newton, which is a modular building, multifamily, 68 units, energy efficient, community-oriented and filling in a site that had been a parking lot and it was just an interesting urbanistic kind of a project near public transportation.
So Channel 5 was interviewing Arthur and me, and it happened that a lovely woman named Geraldine Small was watching the program, and she called me on the telephone and said, “I have a property in Cambridge where the house burned down, and I've been trying to figure out what to do with it.” Her family has been there for generations, and she said it's in a community that was largely Caribbean people who had immigrated, and she wanted to hang on to it.
This is a situation where she had the sense that generational wealth could be preserved if she hung onto the property despite all the offers she had. And I was absolutely delighted. In fact, I just talked to her about an hour ago. We are still friends. And she said, “let's do this.” And I showed her the plans that we'd been working on that were ready to go. And she said this is what I'd like to do and she wanted to do Passive House.
She was on board, and it was like, Eureka, how could you ask for anything falling on your lap? We started working on finding a contractor who was happy to work in Cambridge, and we talked with the modular manufacturing company and it wasn't long before we were ready to go. We found a contractor willing to do it, and the architects we usually work with were already on board. So that was the beginning.
Julia
Wow. It sounds like you just got sent this perfect site to test out an idea you had already been working on, but it is still a design in theory rather than a design for a particular location.
Gwen Noyes
Right. She was the perfect person who was completely on board with building green and had saved all the money from the insurance that they'd had when the building burned down. So it was just a perfect situation.The two of us went to the bank together to finance the building, and there were no glitches. It was great.
Julia
Were there any changes that you needed to make to the basic design you had already created to make it fit the site? Or was the site already the perfect size for what you had in mind with this triple-decker design?
Gwen Noyes
It fit the site, and we got the parking that we needed on it. The site was an odd shape, and we did need to go through the special permit process because the existing conditions for most typical townhouses [triple deckers] do not conform to current zoning. The neighbors were supportive, so that's something that you need to always check, obviously.
Julia
Right. I think a lot of people, especially if they're listening from Massachusetts, are very familiar with the triple-decker design, or at least the triple-deckers that are ubiquitous, which have been built 100 years ago or more. What is the same or different from your contemporary triple-decker when it comes to layout or certain features and how did you bring that up to date for the modern lifestyle?
Gwen Noyes
Well, certainly making a building that's an all-electric, Passive House and incredibly energy efficient, is from the get-go an interesting thing. It also happens that there is a new code that if you have a sprinkler system in the building, you only need one set of stairs for a three-story building, which saves a lot of space and makes it pretty easy to have three bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second and third floor. It's a very efficient layout and allows you to have good sized bedrooms.
Julia
From a design perspective, what were your biggest learnings from implementing your original triple-decker design, which fit so well onto this first site?
Gwen Noyes
As people moved into the Cambridge project, in the hot times of summer, when the temperature was scratching a hundred, some of the first tenants moving into this spanky new beautiful apartment had no experience living in a passive house. So the learning was they needed to understand how to set the thermometer of the temperature controls at 75 or something like that, and leave it there and not tinker with it. A couple of the tenants couldn't figure it out, and we brought in our energy engineers and so on to make sure that everything was set right, and it was but the kind of patience that is required to stick with the Passive House energy saving system is something that a lot of people aren't used to.
Julia
Right. Takes a bit of a learning curve.
Gwen Noyes
That has been a learning curve. The system does work; it just takes getting used to not having a blast of cold air.
Julia
Yeah and that's something that we've all become very accustomed to, especially with all of our window units that we tend to use in Massachusetts. Well, Gwen, so that was your first experience in implementing your triple-decker unit designs in real life in Cambridge. You have another project that is nearly finished going up in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is not a single triple-decker, but a double triple-decker, two triple-deckers side by side. Can you tell me a little bit more about that project and how did that come about?
Gwen Noyes
I met a young fellow when we were finishing the Newton project I mentioned earlier. He came to see what we were doing with modular apartments and was very impressed. I was also impressed with his intelligence and interest in modular building.
Time passed when we had conversations back and forth and it seemed like the idea of trying another round of doing a triple-decker or double triple-decker in a new location would be a good venture to work on.
Obviously Lowell has a completely different market situation than Cambridge does. We knew from the get-go that we could not afford to do all the [Passive House] testing and design reviews, triple-glazed windows, and all the things that we did that were sort of planning and super building that we did in Cambridge due to the considerable rent difference in Lowell. But we knew we could build a high-quality, very energy-efficient, all-electric building in Lowell.
So we found a site that worked and fit our model again and bought the property, and it's now just about ready for occupancy. I was there this morning, and it's looking great. It's very rewarding to see with just a few tiny tweaks that it will be a very high-quality home for six people or six families.
Julia
And so again, thinking with your architect's hat on, what types of modifications did you need to consider from an architecture and engineering perspective? You talked about not having all of the Passive House features but still being very energy efficient and still meeting the Massachusetts stretch code. Was there anything else that you needed to change about the building dimensions or anything to do with the siding or the walls or any part of the structural engineering of the building to account for the fact that instead of just having one triple-decker on its own, now you have two side by side?
Gwen Noyes
From an energy standpoint, having one major wall shared between the two, there's a get-go benefit. Even though it's not being designed for Passive House, the energy consumption of any of those three apartments on each side will be reduced from what it would be with the single triple-decker. That's one thing. We made a few little design tweaks that
give it some extra storage to the second and third floors that they didn't have before.
So, the kitchen arrangement was somewhat more efficient and obviously, a window was lost in one of the bathrooms that was on the stair side of the building because of the common wall.
Basically, the apartments are entirely enjoyable to be in, and we kept some of the amenities that you don't usually see, which is a door on the second and third floor that opens out to a tiny little Juliet balcony where you can stand and breathe the air from the outside. Other than that, it's still all electric and very energy efficient.
We will do the blow test in a week or so. And we saved some money by not having a full basement - it's energy efficient, but a crawl space is less expensive to build than a full basement and more expensive than having just a slab on grade. It's ready for solar panels to be on the roof, and it has been designed so that we can run all the cables for that.
Julia
Do you think the next time the triple-decker is implemented that there will be further tweaks on the design, such as the interior design layout? Or do you feel like at this point you've really perfected what this standardized product could be?
Gwen Noyes
I think the layout is very well-refined. If a site were longer than what we are dealing with in Lowell, you could add a couple feet to either the bedrooms or the living room without a huge cost change for the building. So that's a possibility. But in terms of practical use in the bathrooms and the kitchen and so on, I think it's really hard to see what needs to be modified.The people who come to visit say it’s great. So I haven't heard any substantial recommendations on what we need to change.
Julia
That's great to hear. And I'm sure folks listening will appreciate knowing that this product has been like any product that's under development – you launch a first version and then you could go back and make some changes. But eventually, you get to a product version that is market ready and ready to go. So it sounds like that's where we are with this particular product line.
So Gwen, thinking now about the process of getting these buildings online, you mentioned working with a modular manufacturer and a GC [general contractor] or a CM [construction manager] for each of these projects, who do the button-up and the site work. I believe that you had a different modular manufacturer for Cambridge and Lowell, as well as a different construction manager for each project. So I'm wondering if you can talk about how you were able to get these two different partners for the two different projects up to speed with the most critical piece of modular construction, which is keeping everybody at the right level of communication to prevent misunderstandings about the boxes, the scheduling, submittals, RFIs.
What was your experience for each of these projects, and were there any learnings that you took from your partners in construction from Cambridge and were you able to do better the second round in Lowell, with a different set of partners?
Gwen Noyes
Well, there's a lot to unpack in that question. Point number one is that anybody working with a factory needs to appreciate that they have a schedule and how to get into their schedule - do they have availability? And we've heard that with our second factory that they're booked up through the end of 2025. So that's a critical thing just from the get-go.
There's a lot of pre-planning that needs to happen with any modular project because once they get it on the production line, they want to have everything ready to go – all the plumbing, all the lighting, everything that you're putting in, and that's something we haven't talked about that a lot of people aren't aware of.
The modular building such as we have has all the finishes in the building when it comes off the line. All the kitchens, cabinets, counters, lighting, toilets, and towel bars, everything is there. We even have the flooring, which is one of those things that you can talk about, whether it's good or not to have the flooring in [the factory]. To have baseboards and the flooring down is one of the advantages you can choose to do.
But going back to your question about the things you need to be thinking about, having all the specifications and items laid out so that the modular building people can see what you're looking for and negotiate with you if they can get what you're looking for. Or if they have something that is as good and that you're perfectly happy to use. That's a long and arduous process just to go ticking through everything and ensuring that what you're getting is what you want.
It's all worthwhile, obviously, because once they put it on the line and they've got all that stuff there, you've got a box in like a week. It’s because of everything being thought out ahead of time.
Julia
Did you have an experience on the first project that you learned from in the second one in Lowell?
Gwen Noyes
The first project we did was with a very capable and conscientious contractor who has done a lot of housing but hadn't done modular and was willing to learn about it. But he didn't have a lot of early negotiations with the factory. The factory wasn't asking him to come up and see what was happening. And so there was a lot of learning on-site about how to fish the wires out and and get them ready to be joined - this button-up process between the boxes is something that takes very patient and diligent and smart people to figure out how to get all the plumbing and the wiring. That is provided in coils, but it has to be ready to go and the way it's strung between the boxes needs to be thought out.
We have gotten pretty good at anticipating what they need and how it should be done. And our architects are cognizant of all that, but the contractor needs to be patient and able and bring in people who can work with them that know how to do this. And this one of the big humps for the profession – among construction people, managers, there's not a lot of experience out there in the world, at least in this country, of contractors who have built modular buildings, put them together, done the button-up, and are comfortable knowing what's going to be done.
So one of the expenses is that the contractors have to cover for their ignorance of how to do this and their concern about the learning curve that they're going to be on. And we had a very competent contractor in the first building who was willing to do that. And, you know, he still needed to charge for extra work that he hadn't anticipated.
The second building that we're doing in Lowell had a contractor who has done modular building before and was more comfortable with what the challenges are, and had very few issues where he had to open up walls to pull out the wires that were not where he thought they were going to be, things like that. And he participated in conversations before the modules were being built on the line. He was on top of what was going to arrive on the property. In two days, all the boxes, 12 boxes were placed and then it was his to figure out what to do. And he had participated in conversations with the factory prior to their being built and also had some experience in doing this before.
So this is a critical piece of what we need to be doing in the building profession, besides recognizing the potential for modular building – it’s generating a group of contractors who are skilled in doing the button-up part and aren't charging outrageous extra fees to cover their ignorance. Sometimes you'll find that things are provided by the factory that the contractor thought he was going to need to do himself. And so you're paying for the same materials twice. Or the other way around, the point, “I thought you were going to do it,” “No, you were supposed to do this.” So the communication before the boxes are built in the factory between the contractor and the modular manufacturer needs to be good enough that all of these questions are covered.
Julia
Right. And it sounds like in Lowell you were much more successful in getting that communication to happen earlier so that when the boxes were delivered, the GC was ready to go, knew where he needed to be in order to do all of the various button-up tasks.
Gwen Noyes
We did have one glitch about Canadian standards for plumbing that were different from what we thought we'd provided in the way of drawings. But in terms of the overall project, both the Canadians and our local contractor were pretty happy with it. In fact, everybody recognizes that the quality of the construction with the boxes is just superb. So, that part is an ongoing benefit that everybody acknowledges.
Julia
Yeah, and that just goes to provide more evidence about the benefits of modular in general. The quality of construction these days for modular manufacturing is high. And so that's just another reason that it's worth it to go through all of this extra communication and making the moving parts of the typical construction process further up into your project timeline, to make sure that they happen right to get a really high quality product at the end.
Gwen Noyes
Both modular manufacturers have produced very high-quality products. We think that the benefits of having those two factories know what we do and know what this product is, is going to accrue benefits in terms of cost savings in the next project. This is where the benefits really start adding up.
Julia
Yes, especially with that accumulated experience and replication of projects using the same team over and over again. So, Gwen, just to wrap up here, I would love to go back to your experience on the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust. How do you feel that has influenced your work as an architect and developer over the years? And did it show up in any particular way with the triple-decker?
Gwen Noyes
The Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust is a pretty unique organization because it's committed to providing affordable housing from many levels of modest assistance to very deep assistance and high-quality housing throughout the city and almost always multifamily.
I think the level of commitment for finding sites and providing the builders - there are several CDCs - the extra boost of funding to make it possible to do the good work that they do, which when you think about it, the building cost is often [not] the biggest cost. The expense of running the community development organizations is so considerable that I have a lot of empathy for the people who have to go after the money sources and do the amazing amount of work that has nothing to do with actual building.
That said, the part that I played, aside from reviewing projects, was always encouraging the buildings that we put up in Cambridge to be as energy efficient as possible. And now there is a very large Passive House building on Concord Avenue, I think it's 120 units, all passive.
Cambridge is certainly way out in front of most communities, not only in the percentage of affordable housing that we provide in the city, but also the quality. It's known that Cambridge is an incredibly fortunate community to have the economics of MIT and Harvard and the businesses that they generate making it just a good economy to build in. It's hard to say that this is an example many communities can follow because we tend to have such a quadruple-A economy in Cambridge. So all I can say is that while I was on the Trust, I encouraged the frequency and depth of energy efficiency in our building.
Julia
That certainly came through when you had the chance to design something from scratch and partner with folks to do some projects.
Gwen Noyes
Yes.
Julia
Well, Gwen, thank you so much for your time. This was an enlightening conversation, and I loved hearing the genesis of the Triple Decker product line, as well as how it could be implemented in two very different scenarios, very successfully, it seems.
And as you know, our next guest will be with the co-developer of the project in Lowell. So we'll get to speak with him about his experience as a developer accessing standardized modular ready plans for the first time. So you've set us up well for that conversation and thanks so much.
Gwen Noyes
Thank you. Thank you for doing this.
Julia
Thank you for listening to the GreenStaxx podcast, Thinking Inside the Box. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode and leave any questions. The future is modular.
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