2022 Innovative Housing Showcase

June 28, 2022

When HUD hosts a get-together in our backyard, we invite houses as well as guests. The National Mall has been a showcase for innovation since construction began on the Smithsonian Institution Building 175 years ago. HUD’s Innovative Housing Showcase builds on that history, bringing inventive and affordable designs and technologies to thousands of visitors in our nation’s capital.

HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge delivered opening remarks at the 2022 Innovative Housing Showcase on the National Mall

The 2022 Innovative Housing Showcase, back after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, included events extending from the National Mall to the National Building Museum. Secretary Marcia L. Fudge and Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman toured a half-dozen homes, learned about new housing technologies, and led roundtable and panel discussions with housing industry leaders and experts. They witnessed innovations that HUD’s research helped bring to life and discussed how those advances can expand affordable housing supply and lower costs.

Homebuilders demonstrated their latest innovations, including this modular home by Tomu

The exhibits on the Mall featured an array of innovative housing prototypes, from modern construction processes like factory building and 3-D printing to energy-efficient materials like low-carbon concrete and insulated panels. While each innovation offers its own set of benefits for communities, the most common advantages are time and cost savings. Prefabricating home components in a factory allows work to happen in two places at once—while construction happens off-site, preparatory work happens on the home’s final location. The on-site time is dramatically reduced—one exhibitor was able to assemble a two-story home on the Mall in just eight hours during the showcase. As technology grows, the opportunity for cost savings through economies of scale increases. This can be seen, for instance, in homes built under the HUD Manufactured Housing Code, which are constructed to a single, national standard rather than an inconsistent set of state and local building codes.

The Structural Building Components Association constructed a two-story home on the National Mall, using innovative floor truss cassettes, wall panels, and a roof truss assembly.

As part of the lead-up to the Mall event, on Thursday June 9, HUD and the National Association of Home Builders co-hosted an event at the National Building Museum to discuss how innovative housing types can address the shortage in affordable housing and reduce prices for American families. At this forum, leaders from the Administration and experts from the housing sector discussed barriers to new housing production, and how reforms and innovations in land use regulation and housing finance can help address them.

Secretary Fudge toured innovative housing solutions, including this HUD-funded test wall

On Friday, HUD held a summit previewing its forthcoming Off-Site Construction Research Roadmap. This Roadmap outlines necessary areas of research and recommends public and private actions to expand the use of innovative, off-site construction methods. The summit built upon HUD’s historic leadership in housing innovation, marking the 50th Anniversary of Operation Breakthrough, a large-scale demonstration project that helped spur marketplace acceptance of factory-built structural components like those displayed in the Showcase.

Innovative Housing Showcase spectators had the opportunity to watch innovations in action, including Black Buffalo’s 3-D concrete printer

Innovation is a key tool in addressing housing supply challenges. It allows us to build homes more quickly and affordably, with greater focus on sustainability and resilience. HUD will continue to serve as an influential leader through innovative research and programs. We look forward to bringing the best ideas in housing from our backyard to yours.

Additional Resources:

Daniel Hardcastle, Aaron Shroyer, and Sriya Prathuri contributed to this blog post.

Stay tuned for more Our Way Home community engagements! To share HUD-funded affordable housing projects, key HUD community partners, or other community partnerships for HUD to consider elevating as a model on the Our Way Home blog, please email OurWayHome@hud.gov. Please include a short summary paragraph describing the project and key stakeholders.