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The European Modular Briefing

Eight years of paperwork, ten days of crane

Published 9 days ago • 12 min read
The European Modular Briefing

Dear Reader,

Modular building has a speed problem, and it isn't in the factory.

This week the fastest numbers in Europe were crane days. Ten days for 48 modules in Barcelona. One day for a concrete house in the Ain. The slow numbers sat around them, in permit files, zoning plans, appeal courts and legal status that runs out before the building does.

So this issue is about the clock, and where the time goes once the box is already finished. Every story links to its source and ends with my take, clearly marked.

This edition also has its first sponsor. You'll find them below my sign-off.

Lars

In this issue
1. Netherlands, where eight years is a whole primary school
2. Norway, a permanent building with a return ticket
3. Spain, ten days for the modules and a year and a half for the building
4. Ireland, built for sixty years and booked until 2028
5. London, 1,375 modules in 21 weeks and then a certificate
6. Poland, a factory block for a small town
7. Italy, from 5 to 1,533
8. Funding and programmes
9. Market and competitor moves
10. New Technologies and Innovations in Modular
11. Numbers of the week
12. Calendar: next six weeks
13. Public tenders worth a look
 
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1. Netherlands, where eight years is a whole primary school

The Dutch cabinet says the design and permit process for new housing takes eight years on average. A Dutch child can start basisschool at four. Eight years later that child is packing for secondary school, and the plot next door may only now have its permit.

The cabinet's action plan of 21 September wants to halve that time by 2030 and wants half of all new build to come out of a factory by then. The minister described the route in a letter to parliament on 22 May. A housing concept with an Erkende Kwaliteitsverklaring is checked once. For homes fully covered by it, the permit for the technical building activity is meant to go. The zoning permit stays.

This week showed the ground under that plan. In Utrecht, Woonin and Portaal expect to start placing 460 temporary homes at Tussen de Rails in Lunetten from 1 November. They may stand for ten years. The permit was granted in the spring and is still under appeal, so it is valid but not final. The cafes, culture spaces and workshops planned on the same site were dropped, partly because of grid congestion. The project was not concrete enough before 1 July 2026 to get onto Stedin's connection list.

My take

A single type approval is the right fix. It stops every municipality from checking the same wall build-up again, and the factory was never the slow part anyway.

Utrecht shows the next queue. The homes arrive with a permit under appeal and a grid that already said no to the cafe next door. You can industrialise the house. Nobody has industrialised the cable to it yet.

 
2. Norway, a permanent building with a return ticket

Moelven Byggmodul has the design-and-build contract from the foundations up for 274 student homes for Sammen, the student welfare organisation in western Norway, in Verftsbyen at Laksevåg in Bergen. It is one building of 8,609 square metres on four and six storeys, made from 336 prefabricated timber modules. They are built at the factory in Moelv while the groundwork runs in Bergen, and arrive with bathroom, kitchen, wiring and plumbing in place.

The homes get permanent standard. Because the building is modular, Moelven says it can be moved and reused if the needs change. That suits a site that is, in Moelven's words, still under development and regulation.

My take

This is the honest version of temporary. Full standard on the inside, and a plan for the day the masterplan for the shipyard finally lands.

Moving a module building is mostly a question of how it was joined. If the services and the connections between modules were designed to come apart, you unbolt and lift. If someone foamed and screwed it all shut on site to save a day, you have a demolition job with a crane bill on top.

 
3. Spain, ten days for the modules and a year and a half for the building

Barcelona opened a public housing block on Avinguda del Carrilet to visitors during 48h Open House BCN. It has 40 public rental homes for young people and families headed by single mothers, built from 48 three-dimensional modules made and fitted out in the factory. The modules went up in ten days. When the city announced the lift in July 2025, it put the whole job at a year and a half from the start of module production in March, with handover at the end of 2026. The investment is more than 6.7 million euros, and the modules come from CompactHabit, the brand of Constructora d'Aro.

Near Toledo, ANÜKHAÜS opened a 6,000 square metre plant in Montearagón that makes industrialised building components. The company says the plant can supply components for 3,000 homes a year on three shifts, and estimates construction times up to 35 percent shorter, depending on the project. It starts with 30 direct jobs on one shift. The first jobs are three health centres for the Comunidad de Madrid, in Madrid, Rivas-Vaciamadrid and Alcorcón, won by its backers TMR and ASCH.

My take

Everyone photographs the ten days. Nobody photographs the year after it, the riser connections, the facade joints, the terraces and the snagging list. That is where the factory's head start is kept or lost.

Toledo's 3,000 homes is a capacity at three shifts, and the crew it starts with works one. Health centres are a sensible first order. I'll count homes when a housing order shows up.

 
4. Ireland, built for sixty years and booked until 2028

The 83 modular homes at Heywood Lodge in Clonmel could become social housing or cost rental, but not before 2028, the Minister for Justice told Deputy Michael Murphy. They were built under the Rapid Build programme for people who fled Ukraine, 654 homes on 11 sites housing 2,640 people. The Temporary Protection Directive now runs to March 2028, and until then the homes can only serve as temporary accommodation for the Ukraine response.

The minister puts their lifespan at a minimum of 60 years. Each meets the size rule for a one-bedroom social flat, and two can be joined into a three-bedroom home for a family of five. The councils are also making sure the land is zoned residential.

My take

A 60-year building whose legal status gets renewed like a parking permit. The modules were the quick part. The zoning check is happening after the tenants moved in.

If I ran one of those councils, I would get the two-into-one conversion drawn now, with the wall openings and the second kitchen stripped out on paper. Then the day the directive ends doesn't start another year of design.

 
5. London, 1,375 modules in 21 weeks and then a certificate

Tide says The Eades in Walthamstow is the first UK scheme rated Excellent at post-construction stage under BRE's Home Quality Mark. That score is measured on the finished building, where the design stage only gives a provisional one. The scheme has 495 build-to-rent homes in towers of 34 and 27 storeys, made from 1,375 Vision Volumetric modules installed in 21 weeks. 99 of the homes are let at a discount to market rent.

The same week, Tide's Enclave Acton won Tall Residential Building of the Year at the Tall Buildings Media Awards 2026. That one has 462 co-living homes, 106 metres, 505 modules, and an 18-month programme on a footprint of 1,090 square metres.

My take

The certificate matters more than the trophy. Modular has spent years arguing with design-stage promises. A post-construction score is the building answering for itself.

The footprint is the detail I'd frame. On 1,090 square metres in Acton there is no room to park modules, so every box has to arrive in the order it is lifted. That's logistics, and in a city it is where volumetric earns its money.

 
6. Poland, a factory block for a small town

In Bobolice, a small town near Koszalin, the social housing company SIM KZN Zachodniopomorskie picked Unihouse on 16 October as the best bid for a four-storey block of social rental flats. The offer is about 17.5 million zloty gross for 36 rental flats of 25 to 64 square metres, with a lift and a cellar, in 14 months from signing. The timber modules come from the Unihouse factory in Bielsk Podlaski.

When SIM announced the tender in 2024, it talked about 11 months. The contractor offered 14. Unihouse's parent Unibep grew sales in its modular segment by 161 percent to 181.7 million zloty in the first half of 2026.

My take

Three months more than the client hoped for, and still quick for a block with a basement and a lift. I'd rather see 14 written into a contract with penalties than 11 in a brochure.

The basement is the bit to watch. No factory makes that part, so the site clock starts long before the first truck.

 
7. Italy, from 5 to 1,533

At EDERA's Renovation Days at BASE Milano on 21 October, an instant report on offsite building for the Piano Casa was presented. It says industrialised solutions cut the time to renovate whole apartment blocks by 40 to 60 percent, with costs already comparable to traditional work and savings of up to 15 percent as volumes grow. Combine energy and seismic work and the savings reach up to 30 percent. Under the EnergieSprong model, renovated homes in Italy went from 5 in 2022 to 1,533 in 2026, by EDERA's cumulative count.

The Piano Casa aims for about 100,000 homes in ten years, while residential construction costs rose 21 percent between 2020 and 2025. The report asks for a national pilot by 2030 and offsite methods for 20 percent of the new builds and deep renovations the plan pays for. It also asks for public demand that is planned over several years.

My take

1,533 is small for a country of Italy's size. It is also about three hundred times what it was four years ago, and that is the number that tells you a supply chain exists.

The last ask is the one that matters. A factory can't run on one heroic tender every three years.

 
8. Funding and programmes

Spain. The Council of Ministers approved 201 million euros in grants to private developers on 27 October to build 2,500 affordable homes on CASA 47's terms, with 14-year tenancies renewable up to 75 years and rent capped at 30 percent of household income. The plots going to tender are already developed.

Ireland. Cabinet approved the drafting of a bill on 28 October that lets Home Building Finance Ireland lend for the purchase of residentially zoned land before planning permission. HBFI has approved 3.78 billion euros so far, supporting 19,399 homes.

 
9. Market and competitor moves

UK. Reds10 Group bought a majority stake in MMY US, a modular homebuilder in Louisville, Kentucky, that is preparing a factory in a historic building in Cleveland. MMY has an order book of about 100 million US dollars and 56 staff. The price was not disclosed.

Finland. Parmaco launched Parmaco Protect on 21 October, modular buildings with ballistic, blast and forced-entry protection and electromagnetic shielding for defence and critical infrastructure. Parmaco says the new business area already holds rental contracts worth over 50 million euros.

 
10. New Technologies and Innovations in Modular

Germany. In Stuttgart-Weilimdorf a prefabricated energy module with four heat pumps now heats a 58-flat high-rise in place of its gas boiler. The container sat on its foundation in under ten minutes, and connecting it to the building took less than half a day. A twin module has heated the 57 flats next door since autumn 2025.

France. Citygie craned a 115 square metre demonstration house at la Chambière in Saint-Denis-lès-Bourg in a single day, five modules of low-carbon fibre concrete from its workshop in Ceyzériat. The CSTB gave the system a favourable evaluation, the hurdle for ten-year insurance. Chief executive Éric Piroud tells social landlords that a usual 24 to 26 month job takes his team twelve.

UK. At Easton Bavents in Suffolk, where the coast loses four to five metres a year, Studio Bark has permission for four homes in its U-Build system. The flat-pack timber parts use mechanical fixings and no glue, so the houses can be unbolted and moved inland as the cliff retreats. Every part is light enough for one or two people to carry.

 
11. Numbers of the week

650,000. Extra homes Europe needs every year for a decade on top of the roughly 1.6 million it builds now, according to Bain. In the UK, net additions of about 209,000 in 2025 were 43 percent below the 370,000 target.

About 31 percent. How far construction costs still sit above 2020 levels in the same Bain indicator. Bain does not expect a full rebound in new housing before 2029.

 
12. Calendar: next six weeks

17 to 19 November. REMODULA EXPO at Fiera di Rimini, the Italian offsite construction fair, where the organisers expect more than 250 exhibitors.

20 November. Modular Solutions Summit Barcelona at Porcelanosa on Avinguda Diagonal, 10:00 to 12:30. Entry is free with registration, and it is streamed.

25 and 26 November. London Build at ExCeL London, with its Modern Methods of Construction stage.

 
13. Public tenders worth a look

Open public notices for modular, container and prefab buildings, each checked against the official notice on 30 October 2026. New notices come first, then the ones still open from last week. Times are Central European Time unless the notice gives another zone. A value appears only where the notice states one.

If you know a permit office that works three shifts, hit reply. I would like to visit.

Thanks for reading. If this was useful, please forward it to anyone who builds, buys or approves modular housing. You can also connect with me through the links below, and if you have a question, just hit reply. I read every message.

Best regards,
Lars

 
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The European Modular Briefing

Modular, container and off-site housing in Europe, and everything beyond. Every Monday at 8am, by Lars Janowski.

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