Rethink Real Estate for Good - Interview With Dafna Kaplan
Disrupting Construction: The Birth of Cassette
In this podcast, host Eve Picker interviews Cassette CEO, Dafna Kaplan, about the founding of Cassette. In 2019, Cassette's founders embarked on her journey to address the inefficiencies in housing construction and launched the company officially in 2020. The mission? To introduce both product development methodology and a sustainable manufacturing process to construction that would be able to produce scalable solutions for housing production.
Achieving Scale in Housing Construction
“To really capture efficiency in manufacturing, you need to think in the thousands, not just 15 or 100 units."
Kaplan explains how this "scalable" thinking in real estate requires an understanding of how to modularize units that will work on multiple different projects, while maintaining sufficient "sameness" to be able to leverage manufacturing efficiencies. She explains that Cassette thinks in terms of scale, ensuring that efficiency and savings are realized through repetition and process improvement over time.
Addressing the Missing Middle with Modular Solutions
Cassette specifically focuses its apartment product line on filling the “missing middle” in housing—a gap in efficient construction for smaller housing projects. By applying modular design principles and scaling product across multiple developments, Cassette makes it viable for smaller developments to achieve savings through modular construction.
From Concept to Execution: Building a Better System
“We spent the last couple of years focused on designing a best-in-class structural system that could go together quickly and be easy to understand for trades.”
Cassette has spent years refining their structural system, emphasizing rapid assembly and ease of integration on-site, so that other trades can work smoothly with their products.
Stackable, Beautiful, and Functional Modular Homes
Cassette’s 1-bedroom apartment pods are stackable up to six stories, beautifully designed by Hodgetts and Fung, and enable structural attachment of both balconies and cantilevered, custom corridor systems.
Leveraging Manufacturing to Lower Costs Over Time
“Our goal is to drive the cost of each unit down as production scales, just like in manufacturing.”
Kaplan shares a well-established manufacturing principle called "Wright's Law," which says that that with each doubling of production, the cost per unit decreases by a constant percentage -- and explains that with repetition, Cassette is hoping to bring this key product industry benefit into the industrialized construction world, both in the factory and by way of a repeatable project delivery process. As product and delivery efficiency improves, these additional cost savings can be passed on to developers and ultimately, residents.
Targeting the West Coast: Building Modular in a Seismic Zone
Cassette initially targets California due to its housing shortage, focusing on making a difference in a part of the U.S. that faces complex seismic requirements in structural engineering. The Cassette stackable systems are engineered specifically to meet the West Coast’s robust requirements without requiring additional steel or other bracing on-site. This enables Cassette to stack even 5-6 story buildings rapidly and with reduced complexity and cost on-site.
Sustainable and Efficient Construction
Modular construction is inherently more sustainable than traditional means and methods, with fewer materials wasted and fewer trucks needed on-site. Cassette aims to benchmark and improve their carbon emissions as their production scales.
Looking Forward: The Next Steps for Cassette
In the coming years, Cassette will continue to scale, expand their production capabilities, and deliver on their promise to bring affordable, modular housing to the West Coast and beyond. With their focus on execution, they are poised to transform housing construction as we know it.
“Our mission is to create a repeatable process that transforms the construction industry, making beautiful, affordable housing available at scale.”
See the Full Interview Transcript on Rethink Real Estate for Good
This article is based on an insightful interview with Dafna Kaplan, CEO of Cassette Systems, featured on the podcast Rethink Real Estate for Good. Hosted by Eve Picker, the interview dives deep into the inspiration, challenges, and future of modular housing and Cassette’s mission to transform the construction industry.
To read the full interview transcript, visit Rethink Real Estate for Good.
