he notes. “But we actually need more like 25,000 a year just to catch up.” OFFSITE’s timber-framed, modular approach is designed to tackle this challenge head-on. Houses are manufactured in a controlled factory environment and arrive on site approximately 60% complete — walls, roof cassettes, windows, and doors already installed. “When we go to site and assemble the house, finishing trades can start on day one,” Norm explains. “Compared to a nine-month masonry build, the house is at lockup stage in a day.” Convincing stakeholders took time. Norm recalls a meeting with a government agency that initially dismissed OFFSITE as “not very cheap and not very fast.” His response was simple: “What are you talking about? We build a house in less than a day, and we finish on site on day one.” Once developers and governments understood how the system worked, perceptions shifted quickly. The company’s ability to scale has been critical. OFFSITE recently moved into a facility four times larger than its previous factory, equipped with high-tech German timber processing lines. Annual capacity jumped from around 200 houses to 2,500 on two day shifts. “Add a night shift, and that takes us to about 4,500 homes a year,” Norm says. “But the key is scale. If you want to build just one or two houses, it won’t be cheaper—just faster. The price efficiencies come when developers order in batches of 50, 100, or 200.” A good example, Norm says, is a recent 200-home development where homes sold for around AUD 550,000 each—significantly lower than the AUD THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE AUSTRALIA
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