Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Lopez-Perez.
Hi Daniel, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Polyhaus is a design and building technology company with a mission to accelerate growth of housing supply by offering a patent-pending rapid-construction system that produces resilient homes.
Polyhaus is focused on bringing proven technologies that are revolutionizing much larger project of construction, into teh urban infill residential scale. These technologies include Mass-timber construction. We are the first to have built a full mass-timber structural diaphragm in San Diego, and perhaps in all of California.
At the size of an ADU, the Tetra-One is the smallest unit that results from a patent-pending system of sustainable, rapid construction. This system leverages highly resistant materials and advanced manufacturing processes to achieve climate-change resiliency at scale. Units that result from this system go up to 2,500 sq ft., thereby providing a housing solution from the ADU to the single-family detached home.
Three key benefits offered by this system are:
1) Volume Maximization.
The system leverages the geometric efficiency of a truncated polyhedron, maximizing living space within a minimal land footprint, also enhancing orientation and use-flexibility due to its three-dimensional symmetry.
2) Rapid Assembly.
The system deploys a speed-centered building method that significantly reduces time, labor, and opportunity costs achieved by robotically (CNC) milling the Mass-timber panels that result in 64 pieces that can be assembled in just a few days, much like a puzzle.
3) Sustainability and Climate-Change Resiliency.
The system uses sustainable, highly resistant materials and advanced manufacturing techniques to achieve climate resiliency. The use of digitally fabricated Cross-Laminated-Timber (CLT) panels reduces the carbon footprint and respects ecosystems while maximizing structural and energy efficiency. By using Federally Certified reforested wood, the Tetra-One also builds a direct connection between the health of our forests and housing production.
We believe this unit is the first complete structural-diaphragm built entirely out of Mass-Timber, in San Diego (and possible California and beyond).
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We started this project in 2020 and have diligently been moving from proof of concept to market. The intellectual Property and engineering of something completely new are always challenging but rewarding.
Inventing a new method of construction in architecture is always extraordinarily difficult, particularly with respect to residential construction.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
With an early architecture career focused on high rise and large-scale projects in Europe and New York, Daniel Lopez-Perez built a deep understanding of design possibilities enabled by building technology innovation. After moving to California in 2009, his curiosity shifted to residential in response to the emerging housing crisis. Soon in this new chapter several questions surfaced for Daniel: Why is the vast majority of housing still being built in the same way as 150 years ago, one 2×4 at a time? If not with 2x4s, what building technology can we leverage to build beautiful housing in a smarter, faster and more climate-change resilient way?
Simultaneously to this tech-based inquiry, in conversation with Celine Vargas, his life partner and human behavior expert, another conundrum quickly surfaced: With so much need for housing, so much unused land, readily available funding and ever more favorable building legislation – why aren’t more people building more housing, faster? Upon concerted listening, the answers became clear and were quite simple. Property owners shy away from building because they fear the process will be overwhelming and unpredictable; and, builders simply can’t clone themselves nor fund an R&D department to develop the innovation that could allow them to build better, faster. Put simply, this means that we are collectively leaving money on the table and not increasing the housing supply for the good of our communities.
With these questions at the forefront and imagination in need of productive channeling during the Covid lockdown, Polyhaus was born in 2021. Our mission is simple: to accelerate growth of housing supply by offering a patented rapid-construction system that helps the industry scale. Strong believers that the proof is in the pudding, Daniel and Celine built Polyhaus’ first model, the Tetra I a 540 sq.ft. ADU, in their own backyard with completion in 2024. The result was proof of concept that the patent-pending method, which leverages advanced engineering and adapts technology widely used in large-scale projects into the smallest scale of housing, works to accomplish many goals: 1) generates beautiful residential spaces; 2) maximizes living space volume with minimal land use; 3) exponentially reduces building times; 4) produces climate-change resilient homes; 5) achieves cost-competitive standards.
What does success mean to you?
Our mission is simple: to accelerate growth of housing supply by offering a patented rapid-construction system that helps the industry scale.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.polyhaus.com
- Instagram: @polyhaus_info
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Polyhaus
Image Credits
Architecture Photographers:
Andy Cross and Cody Cloud
Portrait:
Victoria Pierce
