This month we’ve explored modular construction from the ground up — financing, DIY systems, community scale, and stigma-busting. But in this episode, we step into the human soul of modular housing.
Architect-engineer Charles Bloszies brings a fresh, humanitarian lens to offsite construction. He doesn’t just build units—he designs legacies. Chuck’s work in transitional, interim housing and his hybrid modular / prefabricated approach reveal how design, context, and care can distinguish mere shelter from a sanctuary.
What makes this episode different:
- We explore how modular can restore dignity, especially in homelessness response.
- Rather than technology-first, we center mission-first design philosophy.
- We talk about coordination risk, vendor realities, and hybrid systems — not just ideal scenarios.
- We consider architecture as a contributor to community fabric, legacy, and calm environments.
Key Takeaways :
- 4:12 — The philosophical shift: modular as a tool for dignity, not just efficiency.
- 7:43 — Collaboration is essential: architects, vendors, planners, community all at the table.
- 10:09 — The origin story: how Chuck’s wife’s hospital work sparked his social housing focus.
- 13:02 — The Redwood City modular project: a 240-bed modular housing campus and lessons from the field.
- 17:01 — The horizon: hybrid systems and mass timber as modular tools of the future.
- 21:03 — Micro touches that matter: “mean design” vs. nurturing materials, corner windows in small units.
Connect with Charles:
- Website: https://archengine.com/
- Email Address: chuck@archengine.com
Connect with Corwyn:
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmelette/
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CHARLES:
The future, especially for affordable housing, which I think modular is ideal for, six-story buildings, high density, relatively small units, it’s perfect. I think that’s the future. These exotic technologies are going to probably enter into the picture. Mass timber is another very exciting area. So it’s not the whole box isn’t made modular, but it’s their prefabricated pieces that are put together. And I think a hybrid of volumetric modular, it’s called the box shapes and prefabricated components that all fit together in this orchestra of construction could be very successful. I think that’s where the future would go is little steps and not just, okay, let’s 3D print our future world.
CORWYN:
Good morning, good morning, guys, and great morning to you. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I’m your host, Corwyn J. Melette, Exit Realty Lowcountry Group in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. You know, it is always going to be a fabulous show. So we’re not going to waste too much time. We’re going to get into it. I got to give that shout out to those who listened to us faithfully, the Q family, Pastor Vanderbilt Elvin Sr. Don’t put that senior on that thing. Y’all know that guy jacked me up. All y’all who listened from Hollywood, what you know, no good all the way out to Monkey’s Corner. Y’all know my mama live out there, y’all. So thank y’all so much for tuning in. Those from Muddy Mullins, look, we love you. Thank y’all so much for tuning in, for listening, from Marion, Marion County, from Centenary all the way through Britain’s Neck. Y’all ain’t know about that one, ain’t it? Look here, thank y’all so much for tuning in, guys. So we’re going to have a conversation today and I’m going to set the tone and the stage for this way. All right, so I’m going to first give you where we are, designing dignity, how modular housing builds affordability and legacy. Affordable housing isn’t just about lowering costs, it’s about rethinking the way we design and build. So today’s guest is none other than architect and engineer, Charles, he go by Chuck, Bloszies. He is a pioneer in the modular housing arena and he is reshaping how we fight homelessness, improve affordability and create eight lasting community legacies. So Charles is an award-winning architect and engineer whose step one interim support housing system was recently featured in the New York Times and has been honored and recognized as a world-changing idea. Now he’s the founder of the office of Charles F. Bloszies. He specializes in designing innovative housing solutions that balance technical excellence with social impact. That means something right there. His expertise combines architectural, engineering and problem solving to bring a new approach to one of the biggest challenges of our time, which is housing affordability. Charles, Chuck, welcome to the show.
CHARLES:
Well, thank you, Corwyn. Very nice to meet you and thank you very much for inviting me to participate on your podcast. As you said, I’m an architect. I’ve been in practice for about 40 years. I have a small firm in San Francisco. We have large aspirations, however, and do innovative kinds of projects, urban infill primarily and also housing, interim housing for transitioning homeless folks into the mainstream housing. And our step x system is you’ve described as step zero is get you off the street into something that’s safe and temporary. Step zero is interim supportive housing and we’ve designed seven navigation centers. They’re called, they’ve been built in the Northern California area. And step two is conventional housing. Not all of them have been modular three or four, actually out of the seven are modular. And we have a lot of experience with that very steep learning curve.
CORWYN:
So Chuck, you touch on a few things. So on this show, we really talk about housing affordability because we see it in numerous areas, right? All parts of the country, there are some affordability issues and creative solutions are needed. We also use the phrase and we’ve been using it here on the show for years of attainable housing, and that’s becoming more popular as a part of conversation. But you guys really focus on helping to meet a need. I know you’re on a high price market. I’m familiar with San Francisco, been there a few times. It is a beautiful city. However, affordability, I mean, it’s, and you know that you live that. So you guys have created systems to help build a barrage if you will, between affordability or accessibility. So let’s say phrase it that way and need. Does that sound about right?
CHARLES:
I think that’s right. Yeah. And in fact, thank you for recognizing what a wonderful city San Francisco is. It gets quite a bit of bad press these days, but that’s all just a very, very small portion of this town that needs some help. And our new mayor is really doing a good job trying to address those issues. I think that especially with affordable housing, what we’re looking for is to provide really design quality. A lot of experiments. I’ve said that architects have experimented on poor people with good intentions, but limited success over the years. And what everybody wants is just what most of us have a nice nurturing environment where we can experience life, raise a family and all the basic things that we all want to do. So primarily, and it has really nothing to do with modular, but modular sometimes comes with a stigma of being cheap or trailers, for example, come to mind and things like that, but that’s not necessarily the case. The technology is there, the design expertise, both in the modular world and for us site architects, we have to really collaborate with the vendor architects and designers, but there’s no reason that quality architecture can’t be created as the New York Times recognized.
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CORWYN:
You guys address a need, and this is both for you, Chuck, but also for our listeners. A lot of our listeners are connected to organizations or familiar with organizations that assist with transitional housing or helping to mitigate homelessness, as well as just meet basic and fundamental needs. I mean, we service the entire gambit, if you will, of just, okay, hey, I’m going to own a home. What does this look like? So I want to take you a little bit deeper on that subject that you just, if you will, you just pop the top on the soda can, so to speak, of the quality of the product. You design it, so you know what goes into it. Meaning when you design it, if you don’t mind, I may know a little bit of this, but for our listeners, when you create a design, you factor in the materials as well. So obviously you got to meet code, you got to have strength, a solid product, but if I recall correctly, and please give us this, but you also dictate what the material is, right?
CHARLES:
Sometimes, I think we architects don’t design everything. We don’t design light fixtures and plumbing fixtures and whatever. We pick them from a catalog, but the bigger the pieces that we’re picking from a catalog, the less kind of design control we have. And so the challenge is to work with vendors who have a quality product and then work together within their system to put essentially boxes together that yield a really nice product. I think one analogy that we use a lot is it’s automobile technology, you know, buying a car where car vendors or manufacturers have very sophisticated assembly lines. Some cars are more beautiful than others, certainly, and run better than others, but what the auto manufacturer wants to do is make sure that they’re all the same and crank out the same thing with a few features. And it’s the same kind of concept with modular housing. So the architect and the owners, too, need to acknowledge that there’s a lot, a wide range of design flexibility, but not an infinitely wide range, and just work within those parameters together to push each other a little bit here and there. But we say that to the vendors that we don’t want to retool your factory, but we have planners in the neighborhood and a lot of folks that we have to make happy for all the appropriate reasons. So maybe that kind of siding that you normally use, we could use this instead. And then we work together to make that happen.
CORWYN:
Okay, that makes perfect sense because you got to have all the players at the table, if that makes any sense. So you’re not going to move the ball down the field without having the right team on the field.
CHARLES:
Put your ego in your back pocket and be collaborative.
CORWYN:
Exactly, exactly, exactly. It’s a team sport. To change the world, it’s a team sport, for real. So what has been like, well, matter of fact, let me even back up and even ask this question, Chuck, because in order for you to find success in any given thing, there has to be a passion underlying or rooted, it has to be rooted in passion. So what got you to this space and to this arena as far as it being a passion or desire of yours to be effective within this segment or niche?
CHARLES:
Well, a couple of things. As you said, I’m also a structural engineer. So I believe there’s a connection between how we build and the beauty of the result. And that’s really what’s the spark that was turned on in my schooling. And it’s still burning brightly, I’d like to think. The reason we got involved in homelessness actually has to do with my wife. She’s a University of California professor and doctor at this county hospital here. And we’d be driving around town and she’d say, well, there’s one of my patients that was discharged just a couple of days ago and they’re still back out on the street because this is just not working. So the first idea really was a metal tent, shipping containers, talked to her colleagues at work at the hospital and said, is this an idea that makes sense? Do you think folks would come off the street if they had privacy? And they all said, yeah, absolutely. That’s the most important thing. So that’s what kind of got us going. And we don’t use shipping containers anymore. They’re a little too small. And we work with modular vendors who primarily build in a conventional way, two by fours and just the way you build a house, but it’s done in the factory and the quality control in theory, not always in practice, but mostly in theory is much better and fitting the boxes together. It’s like Legos. And of course, all architects grew up playing with Legos. So we’re having a great time trying to figure out how these things fit together. Either little boxes made into a big box or an array of boxes that are a more like campus line, like a set, lots of different possibilities with module. That’s probably the biggest benefit. You can fit all kinds of weird sites with these modules. Typically they show up, they can get built faster than conventional construction. You don’t disrupt the neighborhood or the neighbors as much. A lot of benefits.
CORWYN:
Definitely some upsides to it. We’ve been having a conversation, ongoing conversation in this arena, in this realm, on this show, because we want to start to expose and enlighten people on the right reality, pros, cons, or what have you. And obviously people have opinions. Oftentimes those we know as well as anyone that oftentimes those opinions are not necessarily rooted in fact. And in turn, we want to make sure we’re getting the facts out to people. So this has become that realm that you guys have really focused on in order to serve the needs of your community. So that is amazing. So you may mention you’ve done a few projects, not out of all the projects you’ve done, less than half have been manufactured modular type construction. And you touched on some of the things, but what also in that process has been beneficial? So let’s put them side by side. You may mention of the shorter time period for on-site construction is one point, but give us some of the other pros and cons versus site built that you’ve seen as you sought to deliver this product.
CHARLES:
Well, here’s a kind of our best project so far in San Mateo County in Redwood City. It’s 240 beds, 135 modules, I believe, $54 million project, a large project. It took about a year to finish. It was funded by a program in California called Home Key and a philanthropist who was very generous and donated $5 million to make it happen. It includes sleeping units and support units, a medical clinic, actually one of the modules is a dental clinic, but not everything could be modular like the dining hall, it was just too big. Modular doesn’t work all the time. The benefit of modular was that the site could be prepared at the same time as the boxes, the modules are made in the factory. And it took, well, that’s actually one of the biggest points to make, especially our clients thought that once you chose the box, the design was over. But it’s like buying a car and you can drive it out the showroom and be fine. But with modules, you buy the car, but you also have to build the road. And that’s a big difference. But modular allows you, where the real-time savings comes is while you’re building the road, so to speak, the car can be built at the same time. So in the case of the Redwood City project, the stick-built buildings were done before the modules arrived. But then the modules arrived and were stacked in about three weeks. And the contractor did a time-lapse video, which is really amazing. It just came about, which was just amazing. There are some downsides or cons you might say that I think your listeners might want to know about. You’re not buying your car from GM, which is a giant company that doesn’t have to worry about their pipeline too much. These are startups sometimes or vendors who need to keep their pipeline going. So the scheduling and making sure everything shows up on time, or if they come early, where do you put them? Things like that need to be thought through that you wouldn’t have to think about at all with conventional construction. The modular vendors all have a sales department. Two-by-fours don’t have a sales department. So that’s a big difference. And so you have to be very careful that you’re working with the financially stable bonded modular fabricator so that problems don’t happen when you really can’t afford them. And there are lots of horror stories out there where modules have been delivered in inclement weather and been damaged, so the site work has to repair them. But that’s is not endemic. That’s just can happen, but that’s one of the things to think about if you’re thinking of modular construction.
CORWYN:
So this really is a way to accelerate towards solution. And what I mean by that, Chuck, is this is a means to, you know, one of the things that I see so often is that we try to bring construction back to a granular level, meaning we got to raise it at the site. And that way we bring it back for a number of reasons, all good reasons. We bring it back for the employment, for the trades, all that stuff. The challenge is that you end up with so many different schedules to keep up with that it’s more difficult and challenging to keep that on track than it would be if you were able to subset that because the factory schedule is completely independent, which we know. And therefore, you can really focus on those things that have to be done granular, have to be done on the site versus the other things. So that makes perfect sense. So where do you see this arena, this realm going? Like what if you were to look down the road, what is your ideas on how modular can provide more impact in our communities?
CHARLES:
What do you think? That’s a great question. And I think everybody who’s working in the field is wondering that too. I think right now, modules are conventionally built in a factory. Like I said, they have a width limit of about 12 feet, so you can drive them down the road. You can go up to maybe 16 feet wide, but you need special permits and that increases the transportation costs. And then putting them together in the field, mate lines, they’re called, we call them zippers. Those are tricky details to make look really good and also be weathertight. But there are technologies that out there that people are experimenting with, like 3D printing at a large scale. So far, that’s something to be aware of. I don’t think that industry has developed yet, but it could be developed. There are labor issues. I mean, how much total factory building do we want to have? San Francisco is a union town and it’s hard to convince union contractors that modular fits into their employment stream. So a lot of projects we work on have site work that’s done union, or maybe there’s a concrete podium that’s all done union, and then the boxes come on top. So I think that the future, especially for affordable housing, which I think modular is ideal for, like six story buildings, high density, relatively small units. It’s perfect. I think that’s the future. These exotic technologies are going to probably enter into the picture. Mass timber is another very exciting area. So it’s not, the whole box isn’t made modular, but it’s, there are prefabricated pieces that are put together. And I think a hybrid of volumetric modular, it’s called the box shapes and prefabricated components that all fit together in this orchestra of construction could be very successful. I think that’s where the future would go is little steps and not just, okay, let’s 3D print our future world.
CORWYN:
So it’s interesting that you bring that up because when I first saw 3D printing, okay, this, I literally thought about it and saw it that way that, okay, because I know in other countries, this is more rampant. I mean, it’s being used a degree, I think significantly higher than what it is here in this country. But I really thought that was going to be one of the things. Now granted, I don’t necessarily believe you can 3D print a house or some of these major metros and cities because you got the constraints of buildings and adjacent properties and et cetera. But the fact that you can do it in general, especially in more remote areas, I think is huge. So I’m interested to see obviously what that plays out to quote unquote in the future. Now, Chuck, for someone who is looking at this and we’re going to talk about this holistic, but the reality is that the greater impact is when you are multi-family or multi-segment. So you can impact multiple people in one setting, such as what you guys are doing currently. What I would ask is what are those questions that an individual organization that may be looking at modular construction to create multi-family or facilities, what should they be considering? One. And number two, let’s make that the question. What should they be considering that we may not have already spoken of outside of what’s those? Okay. Well, look, you really need to know this before you try to do that.
CHARLES:
Well, I think what we have talked about before, most of our clients are nonprofits and they know how to bootstrap, especially the social service providers. They’re just incredible. They do a great job, but they aren’t developers. So they don’t take into account some of the aspects of what needs to be done to build a building. So first is to engage an architect and talk to an architect, talk to builders and form a team. And then, as I said before, buying the box is only one piece of it. And it’s a deal. It’s a big deal. It’s a big portion of the project, but it’s only maybe 50% of the total construction cost of a project. A lot of it is underground with site work and things like that are not too exciting, but they still form a big piece of the budget. And what we’ve seen is cost estimates for projects in the preliminary phase be pretty close on the modular side, but way off on the infrastructure side. So I think it’s paying attention to the boundary conditions, we call them, or what’s outside the box, literally, and taking that into account early on, which clients are so interested in the automobile showroom that they forget that they need to build the road.
CORWYN:
That’s very, very fair. So let’s talk about, from the consumer standpoint, the end user. What does, one is, I would imagine it’s not even technically relevant, but from the end user’s point of view or perspective, the quality of the construction and of the material, so the people that are living in these homes or in these modules or units, are they experiencing anything that would make it seem as if they are living substandard? And that was a long way of saying, hey, are they happy with the quality and the design and everything of the housing?
CHARLES:
A word yes, but I think it is very important for the design team to choose the right materials. I sometimes say it’s kind of mean design. It’s made so durable that it’s vandal proof, but it’s just so unpleasant and mean as a consequence. You don’t need to do that, certainly. You can have robust quality materials that are also nurturing and pleasant. For example, the modules that we’ve designed are box-shaped, but we have a corner window, and we call it a bay window, but it’s not really a traditional bay window, but little touches like that provide quality space that you can put a desk there. They’re small spaces, but little touches like that that are built into the design really make them better, and there’s no reason that can’t be done in a factory. I’d say that when budgets are low and people are not very creative, you end up getting something that might, in fact, be substandard, but that’s not automatic in the modular world at all. And in fact, back to the car analogy, you can choose high-end leather seats or you can choose cloth seats. It’s a budget issue, but again, it doesn’t automatically come with the cheapest version of the quality, for sure. And what’s behind the scenes is generally better quality, I think, than stick build.
CORWYN:
That’s a good observation. So, Chet, we’re quickly getting to the end of today’s show, so I want to take this as an opportunity to get your contact information out to our listeners. So, where can people reach out to you, get in contact with you, your company, otherwise?
CHARLES:
Since I’m both an architect and an engineer, a long time ago, I was able to get the URL archengine.com, A-R-C-H-E-N-G-I-N-E dot com. So, you can look at our website that way and contact us through the website.
CORWYN:
That is priceless. I love it. I love it. Oh, that’s a beautiful building on your website. So, Chuck, that might drop questions. Sometimes we refer to it as, you’ve been doing this for a while, and obviously you found yourself in a space different than probably where you started from. So, short version is, if you could look back and start this thing all over again, what would you do differently?
CHARLES:
Well, I think like all architects, we’re going to drop dead at the drawing board because it’s our passion. There was a point in my career when I thought, this is just too hard. What should I do? And I thought, you know, what I really want to be is an architect. So, I think that’s just who I am. And someone, I think, asked the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, what was his best project ever? And he said, the next one. So, that’s how I feel. You know, I’m maybe going to retire someday. Ask my wife, that’s probably sooner than later. But I think it’s just a very satisfying profession when you can walk up to something and say, that was in my mind’s eye five years ago, and here it is, reality. It’s amazing.
CORWYN:
So, Charles, I think we probably hit this question. Both as an architect, engineer, and we like to focus on this, focus on legacy on this show. You used those roles, not just to shape buildings, but also to shape futures. Was there a turning point where you realized that architecture could play a role in solving systematic issues or systemic issues such as homelessness and affordability and become a part of the community’s legacy? So, was there a point that you thought, okay, we’re going to do this?
CHARLES:
Charles, Well, this might sound a little theoretical, but we talk about the urban fabric, and we do urban infill projects. So, if you think of the urban fabric, buildings are put in the urban fabric kind of one stitch at a time. What is very important for us is to understand the fabric that we’re putting the stitch into. Sometimes we want to do something that’s bold and sticks out, and sometimes we want to do something that completely blends in. And lots of architects want to do what sticks out all the time, and we don’t have really a style or anything. We want to be very sensitive to the context, which sometimes calls for a bold building, but sometimes not. And I think with housing, especially addressing homelessness, the folks who come off the street have been in an overstimulated environment, and what they want is kind of a calm environment. So, most of our projects in this area are understated on purpose because it seems like it’s the right thing to do. It’s not about us. It’s about the folks that we’re designing buildings for.
CORWYN:
That’s awesome. So, Chuck, I want to thank you for being on with us today. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to make this appearance on our show. I really appreciate it from the heart.
CHARLES:
Well, Corwyn, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me, and good luck with your future podcasts. I’ll try to tune in.
CORWYN:
Well, thank you. Thank you. So, for our listeners, guys, look, we’ve got to think beyond the traditional. Real estate isn’t only about buying and selling. It’s about supporting a smarter design, supporting solutions that can change lives. That’s what this thing is about. And Charles, my takeaway from you today is architecture has the power to create dignity and stability. When we design with purpose, we don’t just build structures. We build legacies. So, thank you so much, sir, for what you do. For our listeners, y’all know how I feel. Y’all know what I say. Y’all know 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, and we’re going to see you guys out there in those streets.
