Investment firm Mastry Ventures and LENx, the venture arm of homebuilder Lennar, have co-invested in Vessel Technologies’ next-generation housing product. Vessel, a housing product development company, aims to cultivate a pathway to creating attainable housing across the country.
The company’s housing system is focused on “reimagining the apartment building as a consumer product by creating exciting, sustainable, and user-centric housing at attainable prices,” according to Vessel. This is done by prefabricating wall and ceiling components in Vessel’s own manufacturing facility—cutting costs and time compared to traditional construction methods.
Vessel Technologies’ All-Electric Prefab Building System
The Vessel system is 100% electric; solar panels affixed to the rooftop deliver all of the power required for occupants. With the company’s aim for sustainability, Vessel uses no paint and instead utilizes a proprietary recyclable wall panel system. According to Vessel, its facade system is also twice as energy efficient as built-to-code alternatives.
“Vessel represents a whole new category of housing, innovative in every way, to fill a tremendous void: the dearth of truly excellent, deeply desirable and economically accessible rental homes,” said Sam Landman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Mastry Ventures.
The investment in Vessel Technologies by Masty and Lennar will allow the product company to accelerate its efforts of providing high-quality buildings, from rental housing to hospitals and universities. Vessel touts its patented system’s seamless design, with operable pieces that smoothly fit together.
Based in New York City, Vessel currently has 12 projects under development throughout the Northeast—all of which are targeted to be net zero. The company’s building materials are sustainable, fire-resistant, and aim to pair well with proprietary smart tech software.
The software—utilizing the company’s own operating system, vOS—acts as a virtual “super” that monitors the building’s hardware, energy demands, and water usage. Additionally, the system includes hundreds of sensors and electro-mechanical devices to manage a unit’s temperature, air quality, security, lighting, and entertainment systems, according to Vessel.
Related Stories
| Sep 3, 2013
Delinquency rate for commercial real estate loans at lowest level in three years
The delinquency rate for US commercial real estate loans in CMBS dropped for the third straight month to 8.38%. This represents a 10-basis-point drop since July's reading and a 175-basis-point improvement from a year ago.
| Aug 26, 2013
What you missed last week: Architecture billings up again; record year for hotel renovations; nation's most expensive real estate markets
BD+C's roundup of the top construction market news for the week of August 18 includes the latest architecture billings index from AIA and a BOMA study on the nation's most and least expensive commercial real estate markets.
| Aug 22, 2013
Energy-efficient glazing technology [AIA Course]
This course discuses the latest technological advances in glazing, which make possible ever more efficient enclosures with ever greater glazed area.
| Aug 14, 2013
Green Building Report [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Building Design+Construction's rankings of the nation's largest green design and construction firms.
| Jul 29, 2013
2013 Giants 300 Report
The editors of Building Design+Construction magazine present the findings of the annual Giants 300 Report, which ranks the leading firms in the AEC industry.
| Jul 19, 2013
Renovation, adaptive reuse stay strong, providing fertile ground for growth [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Increasingly, owners recognize that existing buildings represent a considerable resource in embodied energy, which can often be leveraged for lower front-end costs and a faster turnaround than new construction.
| Jul 11, 2013
Lawsuit challenges modular apartment project in New York City
A plan to build pre-fab apartment buildings at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been challenged by a lawsuit filed by the Plumbing Foundation in Manhattan Supreme Court.
| Jul 10, 2013
TED talk: Architect Michael Green on why we should build tomorrow's skyscrapers out of wood
In a newly posted TED talk, wood skyscraper expert Michael Green makes the case for building the next-generation of mid- and high-rise buildings out of wood.
| Jul 2, 2013
LEED v4 gets green light, will launch this fall
The U.S. Green Building Council membership has voted to adopt LEED v4, the next update to the world’s premier green building rating system.
| Jul 1, 2013
Report: Global construction market to reach $15 trillion by 2025
A new report released today forecasts the volume of construction output will grow by more than 70% to $15 trillion worldwide by 2025.
