The single biggest need in our industry is housing—globally, worldwide. But what if the solution to this massive crisis could be built faster, smarter, and still be beautiful?
Join host Corwyn J. Melette as he dives deep into the world of industrialized construction with special guest Rommel Sulit, Founding Principal and COO of Forge Craft Architecture and Design. Rommel is a 25-year veteran who’s spent half his career pushing the boundaries of modular architecture to prove that quality and affordability can, and should, go hand-in-hand. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in real estate, community development, or the future of housing!
Key Takeaways:
- 0:06 Attainable Housing at Every Level — Why the housing gap isn’t just a low-income issue, but a challenge affecting every socioeconomic group.
- 9:20 Beyond the Stigma — Clearing up misconceptions between modular housing, HUD homes, and container builds.
- 13:01 Speed + Scale — Modular builds entire apartment complexes in months instead of years.
- 14:44 Study: San Marcos Project — How a 143-unit, 245-bed student housing complex came together in just four months.
- 18:01 Designing Within Constraints — How architects use modular systems to unlock creativity, efficiency, and beauty in attainable housing.
Modular isn’t just about building homes faster; it’s about building smarter. We’re not just solving today’s challenges—we’re building legacies that last.
Reference Mentioned:
Connect with Rommel:
- Email Address: rommel@forgexcraft.com
Connect with Corwyn:
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmelette/
If Harrison Langley showed us how to build attainable housing one backyard at a time, Rommel Sulit reveals how modular design is reshaping entire communities.
Don’t miss this powerful continuation of our attainable housing series.
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Do you remember your grandma’s front porch? You know that spot where stories were told, kisses were stolen, and sweet tea was always being sipped. Now imagine giving your family a place to make those same memories, but in a brand new, energy-efficient, and home that was built just for you. At Country Boy Homes, we help folks just like you find that forever feeling.
Whether it’s your first home, your next home, or your, we’re done with rent forever, like, seriously home, we specialize in affordable, durable, manufactured, and modular homes, the kind that make room for muddy boots, big dreams, and second helpings. Come see what coming home really feels like. Call 843-574-8979 today.
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ROMMEL:
It is the single biggest need in our industry is housing, globally, worldwide. Affordable housing, or to use another term, attainable housing, I would say, right? Which is affordable housing means something specifically. Attainable housing, you can find every level, every socioeconomic level lacks adequate housing. It’s hard. Maybe we can exclude the upper 1%, but everyone else below that, there’s a massive need for attainable housing. You hear about the missing middle, you hear about workforce housing, and we felt that modular, which for me, first and foremost, is a delivery method, was a tremendously optimistic strategy for producing the kind of housing that we need, not just here in the U.S., but worldwide.
CORWYN:
Good morning, good morning, guys, and great morning to you guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I am your host, yes, Corwyn J Melette, broker and owner of Exit Realty Lowcountry Group in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, we’re off to an exciting start this morning, guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for taking time out to tune in, to listen. Y’all know what our mission is, and you know I’m going to say it, so y’all are going to say it with me. That is to empower our community through financial literacy and real estate education with legacy building. Got to give that quick shout out to our folks who listened to us faithfully all the way from Hollywood, which you know no good, all the way up through Monkey’s Corner. Y’all know my mama live out there, y’all, and we’re going to go even further than we go into the Muddy Mullins and Marion, South Carolina. Guys, thank y’all so much for tuning in today. We love you, we love you, we love you. Got to say, hey, to Pastor Vanderbilt Evans Sr., Elder Evans, thank y’all for tuning in. I love the feedback. You guys are always dialed in, and I cannot thank you enough. We love you from the bottom of our heart. So look, today, guys, we are continuing a conversation. We’re on a tangent right now. We’re on a vein to bring education to the forefront, to make sure that you’re not getting it just happenstance, that you’re not getting roundabout, you’re not getting run of the mill. You’re getting the true from the people who do this. You’re getting the true. You’re going granular. You’re going down to the atom, if you will, on this subject matter that we’ve been pushing to you because we want you to be educated. We don’t want you to be left behind because Elder Evans says this thing, we perish for lack of knowledge. And guys, we want to fix that. We don’t want us to perish. We want us to live. So with that, we’re talking, we’re talking, but most important, we’re delivering key and critical information to you today. So this is what we’re going to set this thing off today with. What if affordable housing could be built faster, smarter, and still be beautiful? Modulate isn’t just a design choice. It is a strategy that can redefine stability, affordability, sustainability, and legacy within our community. So today’s guest is none other than Rommel Sulit. Now Rommel is the founding principal and COO. That means he made things happen. He is the BOSS, so to speak, at Forge Craft Architecture and Design. He spent over 25 years pushing the boundaries of modular architecture to prove that quality and affordability can go hand in hand. I want to take this moment to prepare you all because he has done projects from one end to the other. I’ve seen some of them. They are gorgeous. So I’m excited to have this conversation with him. His passion lies in using modular to not just solve today’s challenges, but also to build sustainable and long lasting legacies. Rommel, thank you so much for coming and being on part of the show today.
ROMMEL:
Thank you so much, Corwyn. Happy to be here. Happy to be part of the conversation that has enraptured and obsessed us for lo these many years.
CORWYN:
So Rommel, if you don’t mind, high level overview, my guy, who you are and what it is that you do. And let’s jump in from there.
ROMMEL:
Great. Yeah. So I’m an architect here in Austin, Texas, based in Austin, Texas, been in the architectural fields for over 25 years. The modular work actually is about half of that time period. But I was been very interested in process and cut my teeth on large scale architecture. When I was in grad school, I had the pleasure of training with Rem Koolhaas at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Holland. And then when I came back to Austin, I worked for then it was called Page, Southern Page now. Then it was Page. Now they’re owned by Stantec. They’re now the second largest AEC firm in the world, I believe. Various other firms, largely in large scale commercial work. About 12 years ago, one of our colleagues turned client came to myself and my business partner and said, hey, I appreciate you guys are starting your own company and we’ll bring up a project your way once we have the right one that we think aligns with your skill sets. And that project happened to be a modular project. It was a building within a mile of Texas State University. And the zoning on it was very positive. I think we were able to do something like 100 units per acre. And so it was fairly dense building in a part of Texas where generally it isn’t very dense. That being the town of San Marcos, which is largely a college community, about 40 minutes south of Austin. It’s growing rapidly, though. And this client came to us and said, not only do we want you to design the student apartment housing, we’d like you to do it modularly. So we designed it as a wood frame modular project, got through all that. We got through all the permits and everything, and we were ready to deploy it. And then at that point, the client came back to us and said, you know what? We have a new modular company that is opening their doors here in the state of Texas. And can you pivot and go to steel frame modular? So we redesigned the whole project to go steel frame. That company happened to be Zmodular, which is one of the biggest companies now in the modular field. It’s owned by a gentleman who produces most of the tube steel in North America. And so it was a vehicle by which he could promote the virtues of steel frame, but it also allowed them to provide housing, which we felt was a major market, not just for the modular field, but for the entirety of our architecture. It is the single biggest need in our industry is housing, globally, worldwide. Affordable housing, or to use another term, attainable housing, I would say, right? Which is affordable housing means something specifically. Attainable housing, you can find every level and every socioeconomic level lacks adequate housing. It’s hard. Maybe we can exclude the upper 1%, but everyone else below that, there’s a massive need for attainable housing. You hear about the missing middle, you hear about workforce housing. And we felt that modular, which for me, first and foremost, is a delivery method, was a tremendously optimistic strategy for producing the kind of housing that we need, not just here in the US, but worldwide. Let’s take a short break.
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CORWYN:
So Rommel, you touched on a few things in there. Thank you so much for using the phrase attainable. Affordable housing has a bad rap, so to speak. Attainability, because affordability is relative, guys. Attainability though is a little bit more challenging, if you will. I want to pose this to you because what you guys do is outside of what most people think. Most people think modular is set, like it is whatever it is, cookie cutter, so to speak. If it’s housing, single family, all of it looks the same. Most people don’t realize there’s a commercial application for housing, which is what you guys do. Why is it important for there to be the ability to thoughtfully, if you will, design this type of construction to maintain beauty and livability?
ROMMEL:
Yes, and I agree with you. I think it does have a bit of a stigma. You say modular housing, something comes to mind. It’s usually one of two things. It’s usually HUD housing, which is like the double wide on a trailer that you get stuck behind it on the highway and you’re complaining, you’re trying to get around it because it’s occupying an entire lane on a highway that you should be going 75 miles per hour.
CORWYN:
Theoretically, it’s a double wide.
ROMMEL:
It’s like, yeah, now we’re getting it as escorts and all that kind of stuff. And then the other one is containers. And so I think the stigma, we’re partly responsible for it, I think, in the modular field because even folks in the modular field talk about it as a product. And I’m very careful in speaking about it as a product. I think about the manufacturing process because it leads to the productization of what we do. I talk about it more rhetorically as a product. So we’re going to get into the weeds here. But as an architect, we’re actually not insured to manufacture products, right? We’re insured to create designs. And so when I made that realization, a kind of light bulb went off is really what we’re talking about is two families of executing buildings, conventional stick built construction, which is the traditional methodology. We don’t even think about it anymore. It’s just what we do. It’s our practice. And then the other part is an entire other family where it starts to blend with manufacturing. It utilizes some of the techniques that we find in manufacturing, but it is somewhere between we don’t want to just build the same way we do in the field under roof. We want to combine some of those techniques with some of the benefits of manufacturing in order to produce, in my opinion, a higher quality component of living space faster with a better skill set of folks that are deploying it. And I think ultimately, as that industry starts to ramp up, I think we’re going to start seeing parity, more cost parity in the financial equations they’re in. So right now, I think we’re somewhere between four and five percent total construction buildings is modular or prefabricated industrialized construction and other projections that go as high as 10, 11 percent within the next 10 years. So we want to ride that wave. And in the meantime, continue to drill in on the process and find better efficiencies and all those sort of things. Conventional stick built construction, in my opinion, is kind of like the devil we know versus the devil we don’t know. And I think that’s one of the barriers for a lot of folks to adopt modular in their sort of the mentality for producing buildings.
CORWYN:
So one of the things that you touched all around, and I don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time on this. One of the things that separates the devil we know versus this particular sector of the industry is the speed to market. We know that we have a housing shortage. We have a need for housing. Getting still, we still approach it with the same antiquated method versus considering options or embracing because there’s considerations. Don’t get I believe there’s considerations, but versus working diligently to embrace new methods to deliver housing. So how does that fit into what you guys are doing?
ROMMEL:
Absolutely. So even if we take automation out of the equation, the process is a lot faster, mainly because if you look at it strictly as a logistical sort of argument, when we do conventional construction, it’s very sequential. We go from point A to B to C to D, right? We have to get the site ready and then we have to wait 14 months or whatever to get all the site entitlements. And then we got break ground and then we got to put in all our piping and then get the plumbing inspector to review it and so on and so forth. And then normally we buy out the trades in sequence as the building goes up, even though technically the contracts say you should have all the trades bought out within 90 days of signing, but that never happens, right? So talk about that’s the dealt we know. I mean, there’s all sorts of practices that people just don’t adhere to it and it gets swept under the rug. With modular construction, we start seeing what I like to call critical paths start to merge. So while the building portions of it that are subject to the local jurisdiction and just for the folks out there who aren’t aware, I think there’s something like 38 states that have in the U.S. that have formal modular jurisdictions, which flows through the state rather than the local municipality. And so while the portions of the building are being reviewed by the local municipality, the portions of the building that are built offsite can be reviewed by the state. So that’s one thing. So now I’m combining those processes, right? Along one similar path. And then this, while the site intelligence are taking place, the ideal is to converge at a point where once you break ground, I have all my approvals from the local municipality. I have all my approvals from the state. And then while the site is being prepared, I can be building units offsite. So by the time, let’s say it’s a podium construction. By the time the podium is completed, I’m shipping these boxes to the site. I’m stacking them up. I timed it at one point. I think it takes about 15, 20 minutes to hoist a box in place. And I think the best I’ve seen it done with work that I’ve done is you can put 8 to 10 up a day. The project that I mentioned in San Marcos, it was 143 units, 245 bed. I think it was something like 390 modules. And from the first box that arrived to the last box that topped it off, it took only four months. It took another year to complete it, but four months and you got a building in place. Well, six sided boxes, right? All the finishes, all the plumbing in place, all the light fixtures in place, all the countertops in place. We even shipped the furniture and the units delivered on site with the doors locked. And the local inspector, if they want to take a look on the inside, I said, well, we’ll let you in, but it’s already approved. So you can’t send this back at this point. If all things are going well, you can probably reduce your delivery time by about 40%.
CORWYN:
I was going to say something like that because, I mean, what you just described is a project. Most times it’s going to take two to three years in order to complete. And you guys went from bone bone to this in that time period. That is amazing. So two things I heard in that, Rommel, and one is this is definitely a method that especially larger metros or that are trying to, again, meet demand for housing or other types of facilities. This should be something that’s on their radar to consider for whoever is doing this development in those particular areas. But then another thing, you guys have done a number of projects. So one of the couple of things that kind of stand out are the Cheatham street flats and Stella Domo. I’ve looked at both websites. Look at them, Cheatham street flats. Look at have me over here like salivating. I literally could. I’m like, look, and at the end of my mind, I’m like, I’ve seen this building somewhere. Maybe when I was somewhere, because that’s located where in Texas or where?
ROMMEL:
That’s the one in San Marcos. That’s near Texas State University. That’s the one I’ve been talking about the whole time.
CORWYN:
So it is a gorgeous piece of architecture. First, let me give you that. Reach around and pat yourself on the back for that one. That’s a gorgeous piece of architecture. But let me ask this is kind of where was the vision? Where did the vision come from? Let me frame it that way.
ROMMEL:
Yeah, I would probably do it a little bit differently because I feel like we left some efficiencies on the table. We completed it as a wood frame building. And then when we switched it to steel frame, we pretty much just colored over all our wood framing with steel framing. And I think we could have made it more efficient. In fact, I think we probably could have squeezed more units into that footprint. We did a study for a major national developer slash builder, and they hired us to take a building here in Austin that was already fully permitted and ready to go. And we modularized it for them and proved out that we could reduce their delivery time by, I think, 20 or 30 percent. But then they asked me, they said, well, they were intrigued by it and said, well, what do we do next? We feel like there’s more here that we can study. And I said, well, why don’t we do a what-if scenario? What if we started from modular in the first place? And what we were able to do was we were able to reduce the delivery time by another 20 percent. We were able to reduce the footprint by about two to three percent. And then we were able to add 15 more units to the entire unit now. And there were all those efficiencies that came along with that. So I would say that what drove Chiun Street from a design standpoint was kind of conventional design practices. The way I would change the approach would be to work within the constraints that we were given. And the constraints in wood framing are going to be slightly different than constraints in steel framing. I think as a designer, we have a tendency to want to push back on constraints. So someone tells you, you got six months to do this. And then your tendency is, well, if I just had seven months, I can really make this thing. Or you have a budget, your budget is $20 million. Oh, if I only had $24 million. So it comes to the modular. It’s well, we’re going to give you a box that has to be 12 feet wide by 26 feet long by 10 feet tall. Oh, if I only could get 13, six, or I can only get 14 feet or 15 feet. After those initial early projects that I would count Stella Nomo and Chiun Street as early projects for us. The second generation work that I’m doing now in our modular is really embracing those constraints. And what we’re finding is there’s a whole universe in the micro design of a given box. So 10 years ago, if you told me you had to work, you had to take an 11 foot six wide by 24 foot long box and make that be a livable space, I would have said, you’re crazy. That’s too tight. I don’t feel that way anymore. So I think my approach is a little bit the inverse of how we normally do conventional design. I want to start with the building blocks, the absolute non-negotiable things that we have to work with, right? Because all of these are tied to practice in the facility, in the factory, there’s a thing called tag time. The time it takes from a box to go from the first station to the last one FOB, which is freight on board out the door onto a truck. Okay. And when you’re told that, okay, you got 12 feet by 24 feet or whatever it is, whatever the parameters are, that group, that manufacturing facility has through probably trial and error and figured out the ideal for which they can build a quality building and put it through at the ideal tag time and the ideal deficiencies. And so my approach now is to basically try to figure out what that company’s DNA is for lack of a better term, and then we use that to establish the constraints and also the opportunities as we move forward in the design. And it’s a little bit different way of designing when our field, there’s the classic, there’s the napkin sketch, right? I got this napkin sketch, I had a dream last night and I threw it down on a piece of paper and then I go in and then we start coloring it over and then we figure out what materials we’re going to use. And then we start building it in 3D and then we start. And so it’s a very sequential thing. It’s like concept, it’s a nugget that we’re growing like a plant. But I think in the modular space, it’s really more, it’s the inverse of that. It’s sort of like, what are my various, my concentrated components that I can utilize to derive something that’s interesting? And then the other challenge is now I want to take this thing that ostensibly can be repeatable, right? Multiple times. How do I do that from one place to another when there’s different climates, different socioeconomic conditions, different geographies, all those sort of things. So it’s a little bit of a different challenge, right? But I think it’s a great challenge. I think it’s a really wonderful challenge. I think it’s the sort of, the continued research and understanding how you take a universal idea and make it apply everywhere. I think that’s a really great challenge for us as architects.
CORWYN:
So Rom, one of the things that I heard, and not to get too far off into the weeds, in my mind while you were talking, I was envisioning a chef in somebody else’s kitchen. You go in and all you have to work with is what you got to work.
ROMMEL:
Great analogy. It’s a great analogy.
CORWYN:
Yeah. And you got to go in and figure out, okay, well, look, this is the seasoning you got. This is what you got. This is this. And you got to figure out how to create a meal out of that. So take that and use that wherever you go, by all means.
ROMMEL:
So let’s lean on that. Let’s lean on the analogy, okay? Bread. Water, flour, salt. Basically, that’s it, right? You could add yeast to it if you want. You could add olive oil. You could do whatever additives, but think about those three ingredients, those three or four ingredients and the multitude of breads that you can create with that. Make lavash with it. You can make paratha with it. You can make tortillas with it, right? But it’s the same ingredients. How? How is that possible? Think of the biodiversity in the world, right? We’re all made of the same stuff. Plants are made as the same stuff as me. But how is it that this particular combination results in Rommel’s silhouette and another combination results in a rubber tree?
CORWYN:
That’s the challenge. I like that. I really like that. So Rommel, I want to make sure our listeners get your contact information, like they can reach out to you, your company. Where can people find you guys at and connect?
ROMMEL:
We have a website. It’s forgexcraft.com. The X is in between forge and craft. And by the way, forgecraft was meant to be evocative. Like we could have called ourselves Rommel and Scott, my business partner, Scott. But we wanted to create a company that was genuinely organic and sort of followed its interests. And we teamed up with the marketing team and basically we shared all our ideas with them. They said, well, you guys, forge and craft, they represent the two ends of manifesting things, right? You mobilize major forces and big ideas and big concepts. And then you also have to get into the nitty gritty and down into the weeds to create the nuances that make things like interesting and tailor them to specific needs. And so forgexcraft.com is basically a good representation of all the things we do. We have other specialties besides modular. We have an affordable housing wing. We also work in, we have a division called healthy homes, which we’re doing passive design and that sort of thing. So I manage basically the parts of the company that’s really focused on, I mean, we all are interested in emerging technologies, but mine is specifically with industrialized construction. I think down the road, there will come a time when we can check all those boxes. I’d love to do an affordable housing project that is passively designed, that’s delivered modularly and whatever else we can attach to it that helps us create the kind of communities that we should all be engaged in trying to keep creating.
CORWYN:
I like what you just said, because I literally exactly echo exactly what you said. I would love to create affordable housing communities using modular construction. So we definitely should continue our conversation. That’s for sure. So Rommel, I want to thank you for being on with us today and sharing your wisdom, your insight, and the knowledge that you have quote unquote gifted our listeners with today.
ROMMEL:
Yeah. And also, if people want to send me an email, it’s Rommel, rommel@forgexcraft.com. Happy to talk to anyone about our favorite topic.
CORWYN:
I love it. I love it. So guys, our listeners, look, affordable housing solutions aren’t just a government problem, guys. They’re a community opportunity. By supporting modular innovation, you can be a part of creating housing that’s not only affordable, but sustainable for generations. And Rommel, the takeaway of what I took from our conversation today, modular isn’t just about building homes faster. It’s about building smarter. When we design for scalability, sustainability, and beauty, which I love that word, we’re not just solving today’s housing challenges. We’re building legacies that last. So again, my guy, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be on with us today. It’s been my pleasure. Guys, y’all know how I feel. Y’all know what I say. I always put the two of those things together and I give it to you this way, which is to tell you that I love you. I love you. I love you. And we’re going to see you guys out there in those streets.
