Workshop on Industrialized Construction for Sustainable Development

Currently, one in four people live in harmful housing conditions that affect their health, safety and prosperity. By 2030, about 40 percent of the world’s population will need access to adequate housing. This translates into a demand for 96,000 new, affordable and accessible housing units every day. Global resource scarcity, climate change impacts, and increasing housing costs are making sustainable construction of housing now more critical than ever.

Hope lies in Industrialized Construction (IC), a construction method that offers increased efficiency, quality, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability, making it an increasingly popular choice for a wide range of construction projects around the world. IC supports the United Nations General Assembly’s Sustainable Development Goal #11: to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

The King Center on Global Development hosted a one-day workshop on Friday, May 3, 2024, led by Simi Aluko, a PhD student in Sustainable Design and Construction at Stanford, to explore low-cost, sustainable and modular housing. The one-day virtual event brought together leaders in Industrialized Construction in developing countries. The workshop connected Stanford students, faculty and collaborators in construction and housing innovation to mature practitioners in developing contexts.