EcoSteel was recently featured in FF Journal as the cover showcase article.

From homeless shelters to mixed-use spaces, prefab steel microhomes are changing how Americans live and work.

From homeless shelters to residential communities, eco-friendly, prefab steel is changing the face of an industry with attractive, affordable housing

In the U.S., San Francisco is the undisputed king of tech IPOs with startups securing more than $31 billion in early stage venture capital funding between 2010 and 2020. Last year, the city was also recognized by the Wealth-X report as the third city in the world with the most billionaires—77 to be exact. Iconic landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, along with Chinatown, the San Francisco Giants, Fisherman’s Wharf and the Maritime National Historic Park make the Bay Area an eclectic mix of cultural, entertainment and commercial attractions. The city is also a dichotomy of the rich and homeless.

The Bay Area Council Homelessness 2019 Report identified San Francisco’s homeless crisis as one of the worst in the country. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires the Bay Area to conduct a biannual Point-in-Time Count Report of those experiencing homelessness. San Francisco’s 2019 “blitz count” totaled 8,035 people, up 17 percent from 2017.

Due to COVID-19 conditions, HUD was exempted from providing a 2021 head count. Job loss, alcohol and drug use, and mental health issues are some of the contributing factors to homelessness but lack of affordable housing remains at the top of the list. It’s a situation that Joss Hudson, owner of Laguna Niguel, California-based EcoSteel Building Systems, is all too familiar with. Jeff Kositsky, director of San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, told the Bay Area Council that “Homelessness in San Francisco will never be solved as long as the city is surrounded by 15,000 unsheltered people in the neighboring counties.”

STEEL AND SKIN
Fixing a multifaceted problem like homelessness is complicated at best. EcoSteel’s pre-engineered commercial-grade steel structures proved an ideal choice for San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) when the agency launched plans to build the Bayview Safe Navigation Center. The project was plagued by poor soil conditions, minimal electrical infrastructure, a small budget and a short delivery window. The shelter also needed cosmetic appeal that fit the zone-approved industrial space. The location put the structure a few hundred feet away from a major highway overpass, which dictated requirements for sound deadening material. EcoSteel’s panelized construction featured an insulated roof and wall panel system capable of shutting out traffic noise. The panels and frame were fabricated simultaneously with construction of the foundation for quick assembly and installation. Building and labor costs were reduced. The durable, energy-efficient 25,000-sq.-ft. center opened in March 2021 and can house up to 203 individuals.

Unlike traditional stick-built construction, the company’s value-added “steel-and-skin” building systems and software-driven fabrication is carving a new niche in economical residential housing and giving local fabricators and steel contractors access to the market for the first time.

Hudson’s affinity for the iron and carbon alloy and his understanding of the unique benefits steel buildings offer was forged at a young age. “My family was in real estate and development in Delaware,” he says. “As a result, I was educated in all aspects of site planning, roads, sewers, construction, sales and building rentals. My family also owned a mobile home park. I learned a lot about modular construction during new mobile home setups.”

His concept of steel buildings as houses began to take shape in the late 1990s. “I dabbled in research and development for 1,000-sq.-ft. to 1,200-sq.-ft. eco-cottages to test the small building market,” he continues. “One of the biggest problems was labor. You still have to meet all of the same code standards you would have to comply with if you were building a 5,000-sq.-ft. multimillion-dollar home. You can’t cut out the contractor if you want your certificate of occupancy.

Ideas for a modern Sears home kit assembled by the property owner were evaluated and discarded. Hudson established EcoSteel in 2004 and developed a 10-step Prefab Sequence to bring his metal MicroHomes to market.

SANCTUARY
“The goal is to shelter people with high-quality, sustainable housing that can withstand termites, rot and extreme weather,” he says. “The question I had to answer was how to make steel housing affordable to the masses. To reduce construction and labor costs, we created smaller structures. We made our tiny homes more energy efficient and identified ways to minimize maintenance.”

EcoSteel aligned itself with architects to pilot a path through permitting requirements and the administrative details associated with design and construction. The company developed a nationwide network of manufacturing locations and commercial steel contractors. It also built a library of certified components that can be assembled with standard tools, very much “like an Erector set.”

While sustainability and quick installation are key priorities, the MicroHomes with a minimalist flair don’t skimp on performance, versatility or aesthetics. The company combines proven steel construction methods with 3D engineering and modeling using Building Information Management (BIM). The platform employs structured, multidisciplinary data to create and manage information for a built asset from planning and design to construction.

“Our clear-span curtain wall structure eliminates the need for load bearing interior walls,” says Hudson. “The technique frees up space and makes creative, cutting-edge designs possible with interesting metal building details.” Using steel made from more than 75 percent recycled materials, MicroHomes can move from concept to occupancy in as little as 90 days. Construction begins with pre-cut, predrilled I-beams for rapid, on-site assembly. Fire resistant and able to withstand winds up
to 150 miles per hour, the small structures or accessory dwelling units (ADU) can be tailored to myriad uses.

In 2019, five bills were signed into law making ADUs more accessible to homeowners and renters in the state of California. “Every property has room for an accessory dwelling,” says Hudson. “It can be a he- or she-shed, an alternative to assisted living for an elder, a guest house, private space for college kids that come home to visit, or it can provide a potential income opportunity as a rental.” California regulators think ADUs offer one solution to the state’s housing crisis.

AFFORDABLE
Hudson believes the affordable housing initiative can help break open a new market for steel fabricators. “Residential housing is a huge market that steel contractors have not been able to access before,” he says.

The Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu said in a year-end webinar that he believed that the U.S. economy will “come back hard in 2021.” The U.S. Census Bureau and HUD reported new residential construction statistics for April 2021. Building permits were posted at 1,760,000, up 0.3 percent from March 2021 and 60.9 percent above April 2020’s rate of 1,094,000. Privately owned housing starts in April were listed at 1,569,000, 67.3 percent above the April 2020 rate of 938,000. Housing completions were recorded at a rate of 1,449,000, 21.7 percent higher than the April 2020 rate of 1,191,000.

Michelle Meisels, Deloitte’s engineering and construction practice leader, also forecasts pent-up demand for 2021. Deloitte reported trends that point to the market becoming more competitive for subcontractors. General contractors are expected to bring more work in house that would previously have been farmed out.

Today EcoSteel’s iconic construction systems are being used for commercial, residential, multifamily and mixed-use projects across the country. Whether a MicroHome, a coffee shop, a custom steel and glass office building, a prefab steel farmhouse, observatory, or prefab steel loft apartments, the versatility of EcoSteel’s signature methodology is poised to help subcontractors and general contractors pursue nontraditional growth paths.

“Landscape contractors are also underserved,” says Hudson. “They are already performing light construction. With some education and training, this group of professionals could install a MicroHome on a landscape contract.”

NEW AVENUES
Education is the next natural evolutionary step for EcoSteel. The company’s hot rolled steel primary frames and cold rolled secondary frames are either laser cut or waterjet sliced and fabricated on roll formers. Wall and roof panels are filled with non-CFC polyisocyanurate foam and manufactured with a uniform pressure lamination process that bonds metal facings to procured insulating rigid foam cores. Once the cores pass inspection, they are cut to tolerance with a laser-guided saw. Interlocking wall and roof panels easily adapt to different design themes. Metal building trim and interlocking exterior panels eliminate thermal gaps and provide a dry, lockable shell for finish contractors.

“Very few high schools and colleges are focused on the skill sets required for building and construction,” says Hudson. “We are unrolling plans to establish an EcoSteel University that can educate landscape and building contractors to fabricate at a local level. Then we want to take a free online education program to the high schools where we’ll teach participants how to design, engineer and install a steel micro unit.”

A webcam-supported Zoom platform allows EcoSteel to connect with project partners and clients across the nation. “Today’s building projects need the perfect combination of energy efficiency, creative versatility and reduced construction cost,” says Hudson. “But a solid construction team and the right relationships are just as important, whether we’re partnering with a customer, training contractors or helping equip young kids to breathe new life and fresh ideas into an important trade.”

Reprinted from FFJournal® July 2021
Copyright Trend Publishing Inc.

View the pdf here

Joel Castellanos and Pascale Petronin have taken their love of coffee from their kitchen at home to their own cafe in Cypress on 12716 Telge Road beside Creekwood Grill. It was that same love for the cup of joe that united the couple some 30 years ago in marital bliss and while the two are from different countries, their introduction came from java.

We come from two cultures that socialize a lot around food,” Petronin said. “We’ve always been attracted by how we could keep this culture going. When we moved to the U.S. 20 years ago, that was the one thing we were missing the most.”

In 2015 they put a down payment on their dream with the purchase of some land on Telge Road. With their land bought, they researched a company that would help them build a sustainable building and fulfill their wishes for a uniquely designed space.

Our building was designed and built by a company based in California called EcoSteel. We are one of their pet projects and probably one of their first for a small commercial space,” she added.

Read the article here >

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/Mayor-Breed-was-set-to-open-1-000-shelter-beds-15888988.php

In Cuba, it’s said that when a hummingbird flies, the sound it makes sounds like “zun-zun.” Joel Castellanos and Pascale Petronin, the husband-and-wife founders of Cafe Zun Zun, used the hummingbird as their inspiration when launching their coffee business.

When planning to build their coffee roasting facility in Cypress, Tex., they chose EcoSteel to create their one-of-a-kind building. The “butterfly roof” of the building is designed to look like a bird with upraised wings. The center of the building even comes to a point in the front, like the beak of a hummingbird. “We didn’t demand that our building look like a hummingbird,” Petronin recalls.

We told a story, and the architect came up with the idea representing the hummingbird in the building design, and we loved it. And other people have loved it as well!  It’s like coffee. It makes people talk. . .  Coffee is a nice way to have people engage cross culture. The building has the same effect. They ask us how we came up with the idea. It’s a conversation starter.

Pascale Petronin

A building design that gets tongues wagging and builds brand recognition was just one of the benefits the owners gained from choosing EcoSteel. Others included the construction of a more energy-efficient, weather resistant, quick- easy-to-build and sustainable steel building as well. An additional bonus was the great customer service EcoSteel provided.

Sustainable Choice

Santiago, Cuba-born Castellanos and Paris, France-born Petronin may have come from very different parts of the world, but they are in full accord on sustainability’s importance. That’s what led them to EcoSteel. “We said to ourselves, this is a good opportunity to reduce the building’s impact on the environment,” Castellanos remembers.

“Let’s begin with Cafe Zun Zun and try to make it more sustainable, because it’s the right thing to do and because we want to lead by example. Steel is recyclable. It can be recycled many times. So it’s a very good material for the goal of a sustainable steel building. If for some reason we decided we didn’t want the business, what we built could be recycled.”

Joel Castellanos

Quick, easy

Leonard Anderson, the Ecosteel steel guru who oversaw the building project, reports the construction was quick and convenient. He noted buildings from EcoSteel are primarily all bolt-together, like a large erector set. The panels are all pre-punched and go together very quickly.

We had the building up in a week or 10 days.

Leonard Anderson

Once the building had been constructed, workers put up the wall and roof panels in one quick and simple installation, he adds. Instead of three separate parts — exterior panel, layer of insulation and interior panel — each EcoSteel panel is one insulated metal unit. 

The seams are airtight and watertight, and nothing more needs to be done. It’s an energy-efficient and sustainable steel building that assembles fast. EcoSteel provides the engineered design for the structural steel, the design and detailing for the exterior panels unique to the building. EcoSteel sends the fabricator the specs on the steel, roof panels and trim in an assembly drawing. Everything’s included but the doors and windows.

Castellanos says he and his wife thought a lot about those energy-efficient panels, and they helped convince them to gve their business to EcoSteel.

“In Texas, there are a lot of weather changes; yesterday we were 56 and today it’s 81. It’s ridiculous,” he says. “For us, having a building that keeps those temperature changes on the outside is very important.”

Joel Castellanos

Houston is a hurricane-prone area, and in addition is susceptible to tornadoes, Anderson says. EcoSteel was the right choice to provide weather resistance, because the company’s buildings are designed to go considerably beyond specified wind loads. “The EcoSteel buildings are designed above and beyond the local code minimums,” he explains.

Staying involved

One of the biggest differences between EcoSteel and other building suppliers is the service it offers, Anderson says. “They stay involved with the building purchasers way beyond the typical customer service,” he observes. With average building suppliers, owners deal on the front end with a salesman, who then turns over the job to a contract administrator. That person in turn hands off the project to a production engineer, who hands it to a fabricator, who hands it to the last link in the supply chain, a shipping person. “Once the building is shipped you’re done with that supplier,” he says.

“With EcoSteel, you’re dealing with the same person before, during and after the job. They will stay in contact with the owners way beyond usual service requirements of ordinary manufacturers to make sure the owners are satisfied. You have a personal relationship with them.”   

Leonard Anderson

Now that the Cafe Zun Zun facility is complete, the single best quality about the structure is that its look is as distinctive as the coffee poured inside. 

“EcoSteel did a very good job,” Anderson says, noting that the building makes a statement in the area. It draws a great many comments from passersby and area businesses. It’s very attractive, very modern, very unique . . . It’s one of a kind.

It is also nothing like most people’s idea of metal buildings, Castellanos says. “You think about steel buildings being like warehouses, like quick and cheap warehouses,” he says. “When you look at a building from EcoSteel, it doesn’t look like a metal building. It’s a metal building but doesn’t look like a metal building . . . We are making a difference around here. No one has this type of building. A sustainable steel building” 

Aesthetic appeal and shorter building timelines are just some of the benefits of steel, writes Jeffrey Steele, in this Forbes article as he studies some of our residential and commercial projects.

Read the article here –>