Renowned Architect Embraces Modular To End Homelessness with Peter DeMaria

I'm Todd Miller, of Isaiah Industries, manufacturers

of specialty, residential, metal roofing, and other building materials.

Today, my co host is Ryan Bell.

Ryan, how you doing today?

Hey, good morning, Todd.

I'm doing great.

How are you?

I'm doing well also.

So I kind of had a interesting story yesterday with my mom.

Um, this was interesting.

So she had called me the night before about 10 o'clock at night.

She lives two doors down.

So that helps.

Um, but she called me and said that, um, you won't believe what's in my house.

I have this huge bat flying around inside my house.

And, um, bats kind of freak people out as, as we know, so I, I kinda, she, she

really didn't get too upset about it.

She was pretty calm about the whole thing.

So I said, okay, here's what you're gonna do.

Close all the doors, go to bed, leave 1 door open and leave

a light on in that room and.

We'll see what's up in the morning.

Um, so in the morning I get to her house and I knock on her door

and, um, I, I immediately shine a flashlight and in her face and say,

Hey, I'm here looking for an old bat.

Um, she actually took that with a great deal of humor.

So that was good.

But you know, my mom was a farm girl, so nothing bothers

farm people I've discovered.

So, um.

Anyway, we found the bat, um, uh, we did hire a bat removal specialist,

which by the way, the going rate for bat removal is 300 bucks now.

Um, yes, but we had, we had a bat removal specialist come and, and

he was like, I can't believe she stayed in the house last night.

Nobody stays in their house when they think there's a bat in there.

Wow.

So I was proud of her.

She's a farm girl through and through anyway.

So just a reminder to our audience.

Uh, once again, we are playing our challenge words here on this

episode of construction disruption.

Uh, that's is, uh, whereby each of us on the show has been given

some sort of secret word or phrase, seamlessly as possible.

And, uh, you, the audience can kind of guess what maybe our challenge word was.

If you hear us say something kind of.

Peculiar, um, peculiar is not a challenge word, by the way.

Uh, and then at the end of the show, we will announce whether we were successful

or not at getting in our challenge words.

So Ryan, we ready to go.

Yes.

Let's get started.

Great.

Well, today's guest is Peter DeMaria.

Um, having lived in California and Texas, Peter has a long history in

architectural design and academia.

The recipient of six AIA honor awards for excellence in design.

Peter has also received the Bank of Manhattan's Innovative Entrepreneur

of the Year Award in recognition of his progressive and committed business

development focused on alternative building methodologies and systems.

One of the most recent developments in Peter's career has been as Chief Design

Officer and co founder of Mid-Rise Modular, LLC, um, with Mid-Rise Modular.

LLC.

He's on a mission to provide housing for the masses.

Mid-Rise is a prefab 2D panel and 3D volumetric modular company focused on

providing high quality architectural solutions in an expedited manner

at an affordable affordable price.

Peter, uh, really is on a quest to crack the code on the world's homeless

and housing shortage challenge.

So Peter, uh, welcome to Construction Disruption today.

It's a pleasure to have you as our guest.

Thank you, Todd.

Good morning to you and Ryan.

Happy to be here.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you again.

So, um, a lot of times in this sort of interview format, I'll kind of start

by asking the guest to tell us a little bit about how their career started.

Um, the thing that impresses me about you, and it's pretty easy as I look at your

CV and all you've done is you are really.

Kind of live with this sense of urgency to solve problems

and to create a better future.

Um, so I really want to focus on that rather than focus on your past, but, um,

I am kind of curious, is there anything in the early part of your career that,

um, really created these burning, um, drive and passions that you have today,

uh, to address the homeless issue?

I think if there was one pivotal moment, it was not an

aha moment, but it was one of those moments where you're in it and you

don't realize it is changing the trajectory of your entire life.

And I was in undergraduate school, had a fine art, pursuing a fine art degree,

and just happened to take a class over in the engineering department.

Which was taboo at that time.

The artists were not taking classes in the engineering department.

The engineers were foreign animals, you know.

And I happened to take a class with a gentleman who was from Missouri

originally, and was kind of a disciple of Buckminster Fuller.

And Buckminster Fuller was quite a renaissance man through

the entire century almost.

And, um, we had a wild idea, or one of our class, he said, let's go

on up to Woods Hole, Massachusetts and meet Buckminster Fuller.

And I was like, wow, yeah, exactly.

So you go up there and this gentleman walks in, and you're all sitting

around like young college students, and he walks into the room and he must

have been 75, something in his 70s.

And he had a cane, and he walks in, but it did not matter about his age.

Some folks just transcend time.

He walked in, and I swear all the lights went on, right?

He just, just this glowing fellow that carried this energy about him.

And, and like, wow, this guy really is resonating.

He didn't even talk much in the beginning, but you could feel it.

He had a passion for what he was doing.

He was so connected to everything we were there studying.

And, and, and I'm from an Italian American neighborhood in New Jersey.

And.

To me, Bucky Fuller is like so outside of the norm, but it was really inspiring.

All of a sudden you start to think about how you can live as opposed

to how you have lived, right?

That had nothing to do with modular, right?

But it was a pivotal moment where I could chase back and say, you know what,

That's when, that's when they took a hard right turn, and things, things started

off on a whole new, uh, whole new path.

So that, that's probably the earliest one.

I can go back further and further and tell you stories about my neighborhood,

and, and every one of those is a great story, and, uh, and it's helped shape

me in, in some way, shape, or form.

But I think meeting Buckminster Fuller and seeing a more worldly view of

it, uh, as opposed to a more narrow focus, the macro as opposed to the

micro, was a very pivotal moment.

That is fantastic.

And I love that, you know, and I'm sure that, uh, You know, he probably

didn't realize he was having the impact on people that he was just

with that simple meeting with a bunch of undergraduate students, but, uh,

fantastic how you've carried that.

So, so I have to ask, where did you go to undergrad school at?

I assume you were not an Ohio State, Ohio State Buckeye or anything.

I went to a small university in New Jersey

called Keene University.

And from Kean University, uh, I met the professor there, Joe, um, Joe

Clinton, who used to work with Bucky Fuller, that's how I got to meet him.

And the minute I met him, I said, I'm going to graduate school, you know.

I remember my dad saying, graduate school, what's that, right?

We go to a working class, blue collar neighborhood, he

said, what's graduate school?

I said, you know, I go for a few more years, I want to be an architect.

Because how many more years?

You could be a doctor.

That's all they knew.

You go beyond undergraduate school, you're going to be a doctor and attorney.

But yeah, really homegrown there in New Jersey and then went

to the University of Texas.

And that was another pivotal moment.

That might have been one of the greatest things I did in my entire life because

it really opened the world up to me.

But Austin, I still have a love for Austin.

And recently we had the opportunity to go back and teach there for a few

years at the School of Architecture where I just got my master's degree.

Um, and it's more inspiring to teach, believe it or not, than

to actually be the student.

It's a, it's a, it's quite an interesting dichotomy there.

But, uh, Austin is a newfound home for me.

very cool.

And that's an interesting perspective, too, that it's more

fun to teach than be the student.

And even though I've never been a professor or academia, yeah, I find this

part of my career where I can build into others a lot more rewarding back when

I was trying to learn all that stuff.

So, um, good stuff.

So, I'm curious, what do you see as the biggest barriers to solving, um,

the homeless crisis and how does your company you have founded, Mid-Rise

Modular, um, how are you breaking through some of those challenges?

So I'm going to answer those in reverse.

I'll tell you about Mid-Rise first, and then I'll tell you what

I think is the larger challenge.

Uh, Mid-Rise works exclusively in light gauge steel and non combustible materials.

We don't use plywood.

We are using something called shear board for our shear panels.

Uh, we'll use another product called Structacrete for our flooring.

Uh, there's no plywood, there's no combustible materials in our projects.

So they're what we call Type 1 buildings, sometimes Type 2 buildings.

We do that because we've seen so often that the traditional and modular wood

frame buildings are susceptible to mold, termites, fire, all those things that

really don't speak about longevity.

And when we do create a building, there's this incredible amount

of work that goes into it.

And it's not like, um, I think Frank Lloyd Wright said that he said

that when doctors make a mistake.

They get to bury their mistakes, right?

But when architects make a mistake, you just plant vines, right?

And you just cover it up so no one sees it, right?

And, uh, I've never liked that.

I mean, I'm just saying you have an impact, but we have a responsibility

to create something that is going to improve, uh, improve our quality of life,

have an impact on our quality of life.

We, you know, I've always felt that our surroundings play a pivotal role

in how, how we approach the day.

And our modular company is a, uh, it's got all the technical bells and whistles.

Innovative, kooky guy that loves to, you know, solve problems and

that's at the core of everything.

So we're on the cutting edge of what's taking place in our industry and to be

wrapped up in all the technical but not think about, you know, the aesthetics

and how it's going to have an impact on someone's life, um, is short sighted.

So that's where we are.

We are out there trying to make a positive difference.

When I grew up in New Jersey, um, in Elizabeth and Newark, I was closer

to New York City than Philadelphia.

Um, there were projects there that were built in 60s, and they, they

must have been 25 story buildings, made of brick and solid buildings.

Well, I think 35 years later, they tore them down.

It's just not good enough to create a shelter and put people in a box, right?

Because it has impact on how they live and, um, it's part of a much

larger fabric, so we can't avoid that.

That part of me as an architect just never goes away.

The second part of the question and what I see the challenges are, there

are some brilliant people in this field.

I, and I learned continuously through collaboration, through speaking to a

gentleman like yourself, and, and we just get better and better and better,

and we're part of this continuum.

You know, this evolution of ideas in a pre fab and modular world that

continues to get better, much like, uh, a smartphone was developed.

My smartphone from 15 years ago didn't look anything like what I have now.

I, I did the same thing with automobiles, and you look at aerospace, and all of

those industries continue to progress.

But for some reason in the world of architecture, we're still doing it the

way we've done it thousands of years ago.

Now, the modular industry has made an incredible amount of progress, and all

these brilliant people that I speak about, they solve the challenges.

There's some equipment that comes out of your part of the country, the role forming

machines, that are just unbelievable.

People really rise to the occasion when it comes to the technical end of it.

I was at the conference of the Builder Show, we were speaking about this,

and it's One of the fabricators, I'm a very successful company.

I said, you know, I think we only have one challenge.

And, and he said, yeah.

And, and at the same time he said, people, right, there's policymakers, right?

And all these rules.

Now in California, I don't know that any other state eclipses California

when it comes to, uh, regulations and things along those lines.

Um, and I know they've set up in the best interest of the general public, but

sometimes it just goes too far, right?

And it becomes counterproductive, you know, and it kind of stifles the

development and, uh, you know, progress.

So I think with a friendlier government to development, okay, I think

that you will blow the lid off the construction industry and you'll be

able to see, um, modular and prefab work, you know, leverage to the max.

So I think it's more about policy makers that really will open up the door.

We'll always have the next creative genius come along to make it better, make it

faster, better quality, more affordable.

So it's not a technical challenge for me.

It's it's a, it's a policymaker challenge.

Well, I think that's really interesting, and I think

it kind of leads into another thing I wanted to ask you about.

So, uh, your factory is in Southern California, south of Los Angeles, and

you spent a lot of your career there.

Um, no doubt that the recent tragic fires, uh, they hit the Northern

California or Northern LA area.

Um, I'm sure that hits you pretty hard, but.

Um, so when you look at the challenges to rebuilding, do you

think a lot of those challenges will have to do with people and policy?

And I know they talk about trying to open some of that up and free up some

of that, but by the same token, they're still going to require adherence to

current building code and things.

So how do you see that playing out?

Any thoughts on that?

I'm the outside looking in because I'm not in the mayor's office.

Um, I think it's I think it's 5 to 7 years of recovery time.

And I don't see that because I'm upset with anyone.

I mean, that's no good to point fingers at anyone.

But I can tell you that it's not just the rebuilding of a structure.

If we had to put up a new building and policy got out of the way, we could

have it done in less than a month.

That's it.

I can have a house up in less than a month and you could be living in that home.

They have much greater challenges there.

I, uh, some clients who had all the homes around them burned down, but

the home we desired did not burn down.

So I said, wow, you're ready to go back in.

He said, well, I had the heat bath filters in and all this stuff,

and they're clearing out the house to mitigate all the smoke.

Um, I said, so when can I come over?

I'd love to see the house.

He said, I can't move back in.

He said, the water is contaminated.

So there's no water there.

In the neighborhoods that have power poles.

Those powerful, you know, the transformers on those powerful exploded.

There's no electricity.

Some of the neighbors that did have underground electrical, right, they're

back up and they're functioning.

At least they have the electricity there.

So you've got this kind of utility challenge when it comes to water and

electricity, making a place safe.

You also have, um, this nine, ten, maybe one foot deep layer of ash,

and God knows what's in it, right?

So already there's a plan, I'm not sure if FEMA is spearheading it, but they're

removing six inches of soil plus whatever is on top of it from every property.

Okay, and that takes time, but it's happening right now.

So, it will all get rebuilt, but I believe what's going to happen is,

They're not going to set up a scenario whereby this can happen again.

If you imagine that news report, you know, the same thing happened again

here in Palisades and in Altadena.

All those power poles burned down, so they're going to underground that wire.

They're going to put it all underground, but that's going to take some time.

Contamination of the water.

Yeah, I don't figure out the contamination of the water pretty

soon, but the electricity is, I mean, this is the state that said you

can't have a gas appliance, right?

Where you have to use electric appliances.

Well, good luck with that.

So, um, I think, not in a pessimistic standpoint, I think it's going to be

5 to 7 years because I understand how projects are processed and there are

rules already in place that we have.

Let's say you had a home that was 2, 000 square feet.

If you do not build or rebuild larger than 2, 000 square feet, you're expedited

with your plan check and with your building permits and all of that, right?

If I do go above that 2, 000, get in line.

We deal with the original process that we have to battle with really delays

and approvals and all of those things.

So, I, I think that, uh, in that destruction, in, in that catastrophe,

the silver lining is the, the process and the policymaker type of, uh, viewpoint on

things is going to change, dramatically, because now they can see under a

microscope, because of the urgency, how kind of dysfunctional things are.

Now, don't get me wrong, they the morning, they don't get up in the

morning and say, listen, we're going to make the world horrible for architects,

we don't want them to get things done quickly, we have a slow growth.

Initiative here that's unwritten, but this is the way in which we

stop it because we don't want this influx of just, you know, density.

Um, I think they're all well intended, but I think once in a

while, a shakeup like this really forces us to look to a different.

A different lens, you know, to this, to this point, I think they've been

been playing the air guitar right now.

It's time for them to really play, you know, an instrument.

that's very interesting, I think.

And thank you for that insight.

Uh, yeah, I mean, things like this really do kind of shake us up and

force us to look at things that we never had thought about before.

One of the things I often say, you know, after a disaster or something that is

just unheard of, you do learn things that you never even thought of before.

And so it does open up new ways of thinking and new ways

of preparing for the future.

All that takes time.

So, um, as you mentioned, you use a lot of light gauge steel in your

designs today at Mid-Rise Modular.

Um, tell me a little bit, I mean, why do you see steel as sort of a material

of choice and what role do you see it playing in construction in the future?

Obviously, we're a big believer in steel here, uh, producing a

lot of light gauge steel roofing and aluminum roofing, but kind of

curious for your perspective on that.

Yeah.

And I think if you even go back to Vitruvius, uh, you, you

look at quality, you look at speed and you look at cost and, um, and

they're not independent of each other.

They are all interwoven.

And when we're working, it's not as though we woke up one day and

said, we need to work in steel.

What you do is you're working in the norm, you're working in wood.

And then after doing your 75th project, where you have the same problem

for the 75th time, you go, there's got to be an alternative to this.

So, when you have water damage while the project's under construction, it's

raining, everything's getting wet, it's wood, you have to wait for it to dry out.

And then you have to worry if you have mold in your building.

You have to worry, am I going to have a fire here in the future

like they did out in the Palisades?

Am I going to have termites in my house?

Is this house going to twist and turn and warp, or am I going to have to put a

tent over it every number of years from who knows what type of termites in there.

It seems like there's a new termite every ten years in California.

So all of those long term costs and continuous maintenance costs are

avoided when you're working in steel.

And I'm able to, and if you really want to talk about it from a sustainability

standpoint, I can't wrap my arms around the carbon footprint equation yet.

I hear about it, I look at it, I still have, the jury's still out for me on that.

But when I look in front of a house, like I did my own home in Manhattan Beach, we

built it, it was a heavy gauge steel frame infilled with light gauge steel panels.

And we had a dumpster in front of the neighbor's house, and they were

building out of wood, and that dumpster was filled every Friday, and they

would have to come and take it away.

We didn't have a dumpster, okay?

And when we didn't have that dumpster, what happened is if we

did have some chopped up steel, you had to lock it up and hide it.

Because folks will come by and steal it and bring it to the recycling yard.

Right?

So even the thieves are into recycling in California.

It's an interesting career, right?

But there's a certain level of sustainable mindset in all of that that says,

Wait a minute, we're going to recycle.

If I'm not mistaken, I think most of the steel we're using, 60 to

70 percent recycled just from automobiles that have been recycled,

you know, back into the recycling.

Line there.

Um, so it has to do with quality as well.

When we're working at Mid-Rise, we, um, we get all our roll forwarding machines

and we run them pretty darn slow.

Okay, we can be in competition with Dietrich Metal and Semco and all

of them, and the industry allows them to be off maybe a quarter of

an inch, even three eighths of an inch with their stuff, that's okay.

But we can't do that.

Okay, we're within a sixteenth of an inch tolerance.

And not only are we rolling joists and studs, but we're punching them

to accommodate screws that are going to come in and fasten a stud

to a track and all those different connections that take place.

So if those holes don't line up, you know, we're going to spend a lot of

time drilling through the metal so it's terribly inefficient so that technology

enables us to reach a level of efficiency that not only takes place on the, on

the metal, don't get me wrong, I love the metal, but I'm not at home praying

to the metal gods at night, you know, but that metal and that framing has a

ripple effect all the way down the line.

We all know what it's like when someone puts in a wood wall

and the wall's not straight.

And the drywall comes, drywall sub comes in, and everybody looks

at the drywall, uh, subcontract and says, Okay, work your magic.

And they're expected to go there, put up their drywall,

and then start skim coating.

And then when they're on the fifth layer, and everything is finally

flat, you know, and they ask for their change order, and everybody goes, Why?

This is annoying.

Do you know you do this on every project, right?

So, here we go as far as, when we're punching those steps

for the holes, there's even a recess, which we call a dimple.

To accommodate for the screw head, and when that screw head runs

flat with my track, that means my drywall comes perfectly straight.

Okay, and we all know after the drywall, then you've got furniture and cabinets

that are going in and everything else.

And all of this really is predicated on, or the efficiency or the accuracy of

all that is predicated on the framing.

So, I just see it as a superior way to build.

And if you're going to do something at a scalable level, okay, I can

run that, I can run that, uh, that rollforming machine all night.

I usually let it go.

And those are here.

So it's never slowing us down, and we're never really compromising on quality.

We're always improving that quality.

I know that was a long answer to a short question, but it's

at the backbone of what we do.

And it's come to the forefront here in LA now because the folks who

experienced those fires, right, and it's more than 5, 000 structures.

Those folks say, okay, we're being reimbursed by our insurance company if

they have the insurance to replace what was there, which was a wood frame house.

So there's the catch 22.

Okay, I just got all these dollars, I'm going to pay to put up my wood frame house

and then go back to the insurance company and say, we don't know if we're even

going to insure your wood frame house.

And we're going to charge you five times the amount.

So what you're seeing now, everyone else is, wait a minute, this light gauge steel

that we've been seeing in every office building in the United States, just about

every hospital, it's indestructible.

Why are we not using it in these fire prone areas, or areas where

there are earthquakes or fires?

So I think people are really being exposed to it for the first time, and like you

mentioned earlier, in adversity is born, um, I don't want to say opportunity, but

creativity, innovation comes out of that adversity, and the everyday person who

wouldn't consider themselves creative, looks at the world differently, and

says, it's a problem, how do I solve that problem, and does that technology

exist, am I reinventing the wheel, and when they come to Miterized, You know, it

doesn't take long with all the steel here and, and like, okay, and it doesn't have

to look like a minimum security prison.

That's the thing.

When they come in and they say, wow, this is, I could have my same home.

And quite frankly, I don't think.

Those homeowners care if there are marshmallows in the wall holding the

house up, so long as it looks and feels like what you're striving for.

The feel just happens to, um, give them the comfort of knowing that building's

going to be there for the generation, not for just a short 20 or 30 year time frame.

Well, certainly that talk of steel and more metal is music to our ears.

Um, and I think that's interesting where you say that, you know, modular design

puts extra demands on manufacturing in terms of precision and accuracy.

And never really thought of that before.

I think that's really interesting, but I'm kind of curious.

So, I mean, you, you were a design guy, you were an architect and

suddenly you branch into manufacturing.

How did that happen for you?

Well, he's out here, young architect, and working for another

architect who is doing really large homes for all the movie stars, athletes.

Unlimited budgets, you know, and he's like, wow, this is exciting.

It's cool.

And you're getting a good texture and materials and space and everything

you studied in architecture, right?

And then it's really a thrill.

And then I worked on a project for a bachelor and it was a

22, 000 square foot house.

Okay.

It had a basketball court.

It had subterranean parking garage for 20 cars.

It had a ballroom.

And in that project, I really started to question what was going on.

And I said, is this what I'm here for?

Am I supposed to just create a larger and prettier and more expensive

house with the knowledge that I have?

And I started to really second guess what was happening.

At that point, um, I started to explore design for the folks

who I felt needed it most.

And it's doing nothing, I guess, um, not much different than what

Andy Warhol started out doing.

You know, we get wrapped up in Andy Warhol and the eccentric kind of.

Lifestyle he had and all the things he was doing in New York,

but if I'm not mistaken, he's from your neck of the woods.

He's from Pittsburgh and he started out as a graphic designer and

illustrator and that whole pop art movement was very early on.

Started out saying we should be able to bring art, high quality

art, to the masses, okay?

It shouldn't be just that royal family that has the ability to pay, you know,

200, 000 for a portrait for you to sit down and a famous artist does it.

But everyone should be able to enjoy art.

Because it does, it improves our quality of life, our mindset,

all those different things.

So, what did Warhol do?

He said, I'm not going to sit in there like Vermeer or Da Vinci

or whoever and paint for six, you know, six months and then have a

crew of apprentices to supplement.

He changed the rules.

He said, I'm going to change the manner by which I deliver the art.

So instead of The brushes and oil paint and canvas, he breaks out a silkscreen

machine and starts doing posters, and doesn't do just a one off work of

art, he's doing 500 at a time, right, and there's a lesson in that, and you

say, if you do want to break from the norm, Not only do you have to show a

better path forward, but very often you need to break from the rules because

some of those rules are so entrenched that you cannot move them, right?

And I've seen this over and over and over again.

I gave this example.

Um, uh, and I know it's a little off topic about a friend of mine who started

the ultimate fighting championship.

He came right out of their Brazilian fellows.

They're here in Southern California.

And you try to work within the rules of boxing and all those things to

move forward this idea you have.

And it just wasn't working.

So he said, you know what?

We'll create our own.

Let's do our own thing.

So he created a whole bunch of new rules.

And believe me, whenever you're doing something new, wherever there's progress

You're probably putting someone else out of work I you know, I tell this guy I

said the people who are putting horseshoes on horses and horse drawn Carriages were

really upset with the automobile makers.

All right, because that industry kind of dissolved Well that usc thing that so much

you know I guess opposition, even Senator John McCain was against it, tried to

banish it when it first started in Denver.

But ultimately, folks said, wait a minute, this is another form of

entertainment, dollars can be made, and I think it's the largest grossing sport

in the, uh, In the US right now, maybe internationally, I'm not sure, but it

taught me very early on, sometimes you have to change the rules, you have to find

the loophole within the existing rules, this is where the creativity comes in,

right, because very often, I don't know that we've come up with anything new.

All we're doing is seeing the way things are arranged and maybe some other industry

and readapting it to what we're doing or changing the rules within our industry.

And from that is born the new idea.

Good stuff.

Very interesting.

Well, I'm, I'm kind of curious.

I mean, looking ahead, um, what is your vision, uh, for Mid-Rise Modular,

say, over the next decade or so?

And, um, do you think we really will make some progress set to

addressing the homeless situation?

Well, two years ago, when we started, it was my mission

to really put a dent in this.

I spent my time between Austin and Los Angeles and in LA, I was in downtown.

And the homeless challenge there, I can't describe it in words.

If you walk that sidewalk, if you can walk the sidewalk, um,

you've not seen anything like it.

And these are human beings.

These are fellow Americans.

These are veterans.

These are people who maybe just down on their luck.

There are people who are mentally incapacitated.

There's some bad guys in there, too.

Don't get me wrong.

I understand that.

I'm not naive.

But all you have to do is sleep on the sidewalk one night, just one

night on concrete, and it's, um, it's a life changing experience.

And no one should be doing that.

And I'm not this kind of utopian Visionary that think we're going

to solve all the world's problems.

I think those problems get solved locally.

And then hopefully you have some success and that works as a case study for others.

And so MidRise is hoping to really help out with what's

taking place in Los Angeles.

And the way that I can do, I'm not a, I'm not a priest, right?

I'm not a politician.

I can't hit it at that huge macro level and make a difference.

But what I do know.

When it comes to construction is really important because I can find a way to get

people indoors affordably and quickly.

So, that is really the inspiration behind, um, Midra.

It's really just Have a home for every family on the planet, but

we know we have to start in their way and the problems we have here.

We see is not just national, but we see it universal in one of my presentation.

I think the 1st slide talks about there's 70, 000 homeless people in California.

I think there's 50, 000 homeless veterans in the US.

Um, but the staggering number is there's 1.

6 billion people on the planet who don't have adequate housing.

And when you start to think about that and you say, well, I'm going to

go to work today and do that 20, 000 square foot house for the bachelor.

Um, it really makes you question what you're here for and what is your mission?

I believe that we all have a mission in life, but some of

us pursue it more than others.

But that's, that's my business partner, Diego Rivera.

He's a genius.

I am the luckiest guy in the world working with Stella and he has

resolved all the technical work.

ahead of it.

He's in the AI, everything is digitally driven.

Our machines will talk to you if you want them to.

And, and you, like I've mentioned earlier, you will figure out all the technical

challenges, why, why are you doing that?

You know, even your show, your show is.

You guys figured out how this telecast would work.

So the volume works and the echo doesn't happen and all that stuff, right?

But you're reaching out to millions of people.

And you're like a, uh, an apostle.

You know, you're spreading that word.

You're much like Buckminster Fuller.

You have impact on people you don't even know.

And that happens also with the projects that we do.

Um, we did a project in downtown Los Angeles, 84 unit apartment building.

And, uh, it's all folks who are on the street at one point.

And I walked in one day, which is everyday clothes.

I was with my son, didn't look like the goofy architect,

dressed in black, you know.

I walk in, and I asked the security guard, he's like, who are you?

You know, I said, do you mind if I take a look at the building?

I said, I was involved with the design a little bit.

He said, sure, come on in and brings me up.

We go up to the fifth floor and I'm with my son and my son's university right now.

And, um, and this woman walks out and she said, who are you?

You know, cause they didn't have, they've never seen me there before.

They kind of know who's there.

And I said, well, I was involved with designing the building.

She said, you designed the building.

I said, well, yeah, for the most part, I said, it was a

great team we collaborated with.

Oh, you're an architect.

I said, yeah.

He said, I'm going to tell you something, man.

What's that?

She said.

This is the most wonderful place I've ever lived in my life,

Wow.

And I'm sitting there, and you know, some of the archives, we

take it for granted, we design things, somebody puts it up, we look at it, we

take the cool pictures, it gets an award, and then we move on to the next project.

But the impact that it has on individuals just cannot be measured.

Right?

So those awards you spoke about early on, I can get the awards all day long.

But, but those moments are the special moments, right?

And, uh, I think that I just can't put a, um, I just can't put a price on that.

And so MidRise, we don't go out to seek those moments.

Those moments are a consequence of our commitment to what we do.

So I, um, yeah, that's a great question.

I'm glad you asked that.

I really appreciate it.

Get in there and think about it.

Sure.

Well, and I saw that where the lady living in the one, uh,

you know, development project you'd put together talked about how this

is just an amazing place to live.

And, um, I, if nothing else, uh, this interview has made me very anxious

to come out to LA sometime and spend some time with you and Diego and,

uh, see what you're doing and see it firsthand because, uh, you are

touching on some big stuff here.

And I certainly applaud you for that.

Um, so I know that you attended and you mentioned it earlier.

You attended the recent international builder show.

Um, anything stand out that you saw or heard, um, when you were at the show that

you were saying, that's something that's going to make a difference in the future.

One of the things I saw that when I was at the builder

show, gosh, 10 years ago, they didn't have a modular village.

They had just you walked into 3 million square feet in the convention

center and you just walked and walked and walked and after.

Three hours, you're intoxicated with building materials on your mind.

You really couldn't differentiate a door from a faucet, you

know, become numb to it all.

But here they had a little village with all of these modular examples out there.

So you could go in and kick the tire.

And that was really exciting to see.

And then there is a, there's a company that we, uh, we work with.

And it's called FIBO.

F I B O. And FIBO, I mean, And FIBO creates primarily

wet room or shower panels.

They're prefabricated and we are constantly reverse engineering

anything in the construction world.

So you'll be familiar with this.

Anyone who's working in wood construction has to put up a shower.

It's a, it's a process.

I mean, you have to put up a scratch coat, you have to put up waterproofing.

You have greenboard, you have a hot mop with tar.

No one wants to be on the J. When the hot mop guys are there,

they fill it up with water.

They wait two days.

The inspector comes, he comes back.

There's another inspection of the, the, the stuck or the waterproofing

or mud and mortar, the sun.

And you sit there after two weeks and go, can we please start the shower?

You know, when it's this process, right?

I'm building showers the same way since Pompeii, right?

And it's just always been that way.

Well, this company has been in business in Europe for quite some time.

They've been here in the States, but we want to really encourage

people to use their product.

What it does is it's a marine grade plywood with a surface on it.

Okay, and that surface can look like tile, it can look like stone,

and it's a composite material.

But when those two materials come together, not only do they tongue

and groove, but they snap together and you cannot see the joint.

I'm sitting there, like, you know, they have, um, I'm just trying to test

it, and I just couldn't see the joint.

This is incredible.

Well, all of that process that I spoke to you about, about the waterproofing, We're

doing a traditional tile or stone bathroom or even an FRP shower stall is gone.

One person can install an entire bathroom, not just the shower, in one day.

And I don't need any of those crazy inspections.

This material leapfrogs all of that.

They say, wait a minute, you're going to line your shower with wood?

You're the steel guy.

What's going on?

That's the only wood I'll use in an entire project.

So that, uh, that marine grade plywood absolves us of all

those waterproofing issues.

It's easy to install.

Those people who work there are incredible.

They have, they're, I mean, folks come out and do installations.

They have videos.

They make it so simple for you.

And everyone I share this with, including the traditional

contractors and the traditional architects say, I have to use this.

Right.

It just makes sense.

So they have a display there.

And, um, and that's why I go to the show because there's got to be 25,

30, 000 products on display there.

Oh, it's, it's overwhelming.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

It is a woman, but if I can find two products.

That I'm really enamored with.

It changes the way we do things.

That's a, that's a successful trick.

So I try to be real discerning.

And one of the things we're doing that we created in Los Angeles,

something called Team Prefab, right?

And it's TEAMprefab.

com.

And TEAMprefab is responding to exactly what you're talking about,

where instead of having to go to the Builder Show once a year in Las Vegas

and have to deal with I don't know.

They must have 600, 000 people walking through that place, you know, and after

a while, it's like going to the World's Fair or, you know, the pregame Super

Bowl festivities, and it's just madness.

The Team Prefab is a center whereby anything that is modular friendly and

modular focused is brought under one roof.

In California, in Los Angeles, and they have a little village there

where they're installing just like at the builder show prototypes

from different modular companies.

So that's critical.

Imagine you are in, uh, in the Palisades and you're trying to get a prefab

house, get back in, or you even want an ADU or something along those lines.

You really can't go kick the tires somewhere.

If I like the guys in Utah, I have to go to Utah to see it.

I have to go to Ohio and see it.

Um, I, I, I have to make that effort, but here we're consolidating it all in

one spot and you get to go there and, and benefit from all the experience

and from the modular industry.

There's no place where it coalesces in one spot, like the International

Builder Show does for construction.

So, um, but the Builder Show is always inspiring and you can go there and you

can learn a tremendous amount of what's going on, not only in construction,

but how they bring it to the public.

They, they really make it accessible.

It was a great trip.

I could only stay for one day, but it was, it was a great trip.

So that other, you said was team prefab.

com.

Is that right?

Yes.

I'm gonna check that out today.

Great.

Um, so I'm curious, what advice would you have for someone out there who may be

younger and just starting their career in design or construction or manufacturing?

Um, what advice might you have for them?

Well, I, in the last six months, I've been hearing

how AI is the enemy of mankind.

I, I, uh, I was speaking to a young lady in high school, and she said, I said,

you know, everyone's scared of this.

I said, but your, your generation, I'm sure is embracing this.

And, and it's a tool, you know, you're really going to

make some great things happen.

She said, oh, no, no, no, no.

This is not good.

You know, so in the schools already, they're talking about how this is

something that's not, not friendly, and I can tell all these younger folks,

um, imagine when, uh, you're sitting in Missouri, let's say, okay, and it's

1910, and you have a horse, and you have a horse drawn cart or something.

And this thing with wheels on it comes rolling down the street making noise and

there's smoke coming out of the back of it and you're like, this is what is this,

you know, we're being invaded, right?

So I think in every major technological age, there's this

fear that we have as human beings.

It's a survival mechanism, right?

Uh, I remember when, uh, my, uh, my great aunt, I have all these notes that came

from Italy, and my mom telling me, you know, when they put the first man on the

moon in the early 60s, she said, these Italian women, these old Italian ladies

that barely spoke English, said, you know, the end of the world is coming now, right?

Because there's this fear of the unknown.

And I would tell folks that don't be scared,

Yeah,

it, the technology is just getting stronger, the people

are, are, are, there's more and more intellectual thought that's spread out.

Are people smarter?

I don't know, but I do know the exchange of that information.

It's happening at a much larger scale, so the resources at your disposal

have never been that, that plentiful to any other generation before you.

So, embrace that, take the blinders off, um, become a lifelong

student, a lifelong learner.

Uh, and, and I, I wish I could say, go out there and be that architect, but I think

the architecture profession is shifting.

I think that the folks like myself want to be able to bring a better product,

a better process to that world of construction and to pursue the same old

process, I think it's almost negligent.

You know, you, you, I don't know how we do that.

Everything in our lives is really about improving our condition, making

it better for the next generation.

Um, and I think that's something inherent to who we are as human beings,

so to not do that in the building industry when you have the ability,

um, I think it's very short sighted, you know, to, to not pursue that path,

but, um, just get out there and do it.

I, I, we, we have something what we call productized architecture.

Okay, so it's this fusing of a hybrid of product design and product

manufacturing with architecture.

And when you do that, it requires you to make some changes.

And not everyone's going to be happy with those changes.

But there are going to be some people who are just absolutely thrilled.

You know, and if you can reach that one person at that apartment buildings that

never lived in a house like this before.

And it was not because it was a modular building.

I can tell you what you're doing has impact on the world.

And they really, at the micro and macro level, and if you stay focused

on that, you'll always have a client, first of all, you'll always have

someone you'll be able to serve, but necessity is the mother of invention.

And I think innovation in the future is really going to set you

apart from the rest of the pack.

well, better to adopt technology and change

than to be buried by it.

And I think back when I was younger and handheld calculators first came out.

Yes.

To listen to the older generations, that was going to be the demise of mankind.

Um, but, uh, yeah.

That didn't quite turn out that way.

Um, so Peter, um, this has been a great discussion.

Thank you.

Um, we're close to wrapping up what we call the business end of things.

Anything you haven't been able to share with the audience today that you

wanted to squeeze in here at the end?

Sure, I think, first of all, thank you both so much

for providing a forum for, uh.

For us to reach out this industry.

I spoke to someone, uh, not long ago.

And I say, you know, this industry is in its infancy.

And what are you talking about?

People have been trying this for the last hundred years.

I said, yeah, but the perfect storm is now upon us.

I said, with technology, there's really a global marketplace.

I can get materials from anywhere.

And, um, I don't want it to be a cliche, you know, but when

they say, if you can, If you can think it, you can make it happen.

You can dream it, you can make it happen.

And it's just a matter of surrounding yourself with the people who have

maybe shared that vision or have that knowledge that, that, that

really enables you to collaborate and, and do some incredible things.

So, I, I, I, I, um, I'm inspired to come on your show.

Are you asking the right questions here?

And and i'm happy to think about to share, you know, so when you do come

out to california come to see our factory Um, we'll be happy to host you

and show you what we've done and hoping we're making a positive difference.

I'm going to make sure that happens.

Thank you.

So, um, now we're at a time of the show, uh, where we do something

called rapid fire questions.

So, uh, Peter, these are seven questions.

You have no idea.

We're about to ask, uh, are you up to the challenge of rapid fire?

All right big time Of course

Okay.

Um, let's go ahead and get started.

Ryan, you want to ask the first question?

Yes, I would love to question.

Number one.

Can you tell us about a product or service that you have

purchased or obtained recently?

That was kind of a real game changer for you.

Anything like a new calendar app or anything like that?

people.

Yeah people.

Sorry.

I cheated on that one.

Yeah, I

What is that?

Oh, I can explain that.

That's what I spoke about earlier.

That shower, the shower technology.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Good stuff.

I'm gonna check that out.

Um, question number two.

Uh, what is something available today that is related to construction or design,

um, that you would put in a time capsule for folks to discover 200 years from now?

Um, something you think it's that important that this should not

be missed 200 years from now.

It'd be a simple sheet of paper

Oh, wow.

that says, practice, kindness, help your fellow man.

The tools are going to change.

That time capsule.

I mean, to your point, yeah, I could put our roll forwarding machine in there.

I can put all our apps in our smartphone.

And they'll look at it and go, this is the way the cavemen used to live.

We don't live that way anymore, right?

But I think the universal message, no matter what the generation, is

one of, just help your fellow man.

Make the world a better place.

Leave it better than how you found it.

Love it.

Great answer.

Question number three, if you could ban one word from existence, what would it be?

And why?

It would be, um, pessimism.

I've seen so many incredible people in our field.

And I've taught.

I've taught for 20 years.

And we have folks to come in, and I can tell you, talent is everywhere.

It really is.

It's everywhere.

But some folks leverage it, and other people just shoot it down themselves.

They don't give themselves that opportunity to exercise that part

of their brain, that muscle in their brain that's really inquisitive.

And for whatever the reason, you know, they won't pursue it, and

things get kind of cut short.

And I, and I think in that discovery of doing something innovative or

that discovery of you're capable of doing something is, is the, um,

you plant the seeds for growth for your entire life and your work,

your family, all of that, right?

And I'm, I'm not this kind of born again, uh, priest, right?

I'm talking about just some basic, basic needs that we have as individuals.

To stay positive because the world is a rough place, you know, and,

uh, I, when I see the pessimism, especially with students that come in

and they're at a university setting, they're in shorts, tank tops, they're

completely relaxed, I mean, there's a war going on in the Ukraine.

You realize that someone your age is over there, tank top, and so

you're lucky to have an army jacket on and probably being shot at.

So, you know, be thankful for where you are and make the best of that situation.

The pessimism is the thing that pulls people back too often.

Sometimes it's a great thing because it prepares you for the worst case

scenario, and I kind of like that, you know, you experience, you sit there

and go, okay, this could work out bad, you know, what's dangerous, right?

And what's not safe?

And it protects you in some ways, but in general, I think it kind

of stops so much progress and so many great things from happening.

That's a great answer.

Man, I've enjoyed this conversation so much.

So, um, next question.

What is something that you are curious about right now?

Maybe something you might be researching or trying to learn about?

This has nothing to do with architecture.

And I hoped, I hoped it wouldn't.

yeah, that's great.

Yeah, you're right.

So I, the, I am fascinated with Roman history.

Every time I, I, I'll give you real quick.

I go to Rome, I've been to Rome many times and I've seen everything

and I've studied everything there.

And I'm in the taxi and we're going to see an in-law outside of Rome, we're

going to dinner and we get into taxi cab.

And in my broken Italian, I'm speaking to the cab driver and I

said, listen, it's Friday night.

There's traffic everywhere.

How come you guys don't have, like, a subway?

I said, every, in Budapest, I said, everybody has a subway in Europe.

And that's how you get around.

He said, we have two of them.

I'm like, okay.

He said, but they're really small.

And I said, I've never even heard of the subway in Rome.

He said, why don't they have a major metro link or something?

He goes, every time we've tried, we get down, whether it's 20

feet, 60 feet, we hit a building.

He said, and the archaeologists come in, and all the historians, and they go,

no, stop, we don't have the Italians, nothing gets built in a day, right?

They stop.

He said, finally, the government said, forget it, we're not doing it.

So I'm sitting there, and I'm not ready to start complaining about the traffic,

but what dawned on me is, everything I thought I knew about Roman history,

I know only a small percentage of it.

If you think about it, the Romans were really overthrown

around, what, 1000 AD, right?

Well, from then until, like, the Renaissance, which was almost 300

years, there was no Italy, there were no Romans, there were city states.

Each of those different cities kind of ruled themselves.

They would fight with each other as well.

Well, when you go to Rome and you see the Colosseum, if I'm in Los Angeles and

I abandon a house here, I go on vacation for a month, I don't have to worry that

some homeless folks haven't moved in.

And when they move in, what's the first thing they do?

They loot the place.

They take all the copper out.

They sell the copper.

You come back and it's a shell of what it was.

Well, this happened for 300 years in Rome.

People came in, they stripped the marble off of the Colosseum.

What you're seeing in Rome is the skeletal structure of what once was there.

So, what was looted and removed from that place is beyond comprehension.

I can't get my, my mental arms around it.

You know, so, it's always something new there.

I, I know you, that story will never Be finished, uh, in terms of being written,

it, it was just a, it just goes on and on.

So it's always a wonderful discovery and the food is excellent.

So there's a reason for me to go back to Italy over and over and over again.

There you go.

Love it.

Very cool.

My, uh, oldest stepdaughter is actually studying abroad over there right now.

And she, she is loving it.

She's, uh, staying in Florence, but she's traveling every weekend.

She's in Budapest right now.

Actually, she just got there today.

So yeah, we're, we love hearing the stories and seeing

the pictures over there.

food at best as well.

Hopefully we can make it over to visit.

Yeah.

do it.

You need three or four weeks minimum.

Don't do that five day trip with the flag that you'll follow around

that's, that's what I've heard.

Yep.

All right.

Uh, next question.

What is your favorite meal?

It's just about any darn pasta, you know, I, I'm a pasta fiend.

I, I, I, that's it.

I mean, just tell me whatever the pasta is.

I, I'm in, um, don't get me wrong.

I mean, we went to Italy last summer and from Italy, we went to Japan and

my God, I mean, I was so spoiled.

You know, it's, it's, um, Japanese food is incredible as well, but

I, I have to say pasta And um, that, that's a good, that's it.

I don't want to go beyond that one.

It's just imposter.

Awesome.

Next to last question.

What would the eight year old you have said that you

wanted to be when you grew up?

Oh, I had it all planned out.

I was going to play for, I was going to play for the L.

A. Rams and the L. A. Lakers.

And I was from New Jersey.

Okay.

Ha ha!

in LA, so that's good.

ha!

I'm feeling good about that now!

That's funny, I may have been just me and one other young guy we played

football growing up and we were the only LA fans I think for maybe 3, 000

miles, you know, and, um, and then the Lakers on top, you guys would know this,

I mean, Will Chamberlain and, and Gail Goodrich and, and, and the Lakers had,

uh, Roman Gabriel, all these throwback guys, you know, you talk about today,

and it was exciting to watch them, and, and I had an uncle who had moved

to, um, to Los Angeles in the 60s.

And, you know, he was in World War II and all that, but he was

always cut from a different call.

He was always a little bit wilder than the rest of the family, and he

would come and visit in his Corvette.

And there was kind of this mystique about California, it

was kind of this cool place.

So I, I didn't know anything about it, really, but I like the two sports

teams and my career got sidetracked.

Um, I, um, I don't know what happened there, but, uh, I, I, that career

as a, as a professional athlete.

Um, It didn't work out.

I think it went from eight years old to maybe 12 years old, and it wasn't,

it wasn't like I was in the NFL for a few years and then got an injury,

you know, but all good, all good.

At some point, reality set in.

I understand.

Yeah,

All right.

Uh, final question here.

We'll end on a little bit more of a serious note.

What would you like to be remembered for at the end of your days

you know, I don't, I don't want to defuse the question.

I don't know if it's important.

For me to be remembered as long as there's a few photographs out there to

share with the kids and the families that that's the crazy uncle that did,

you know, tried to make a difference, you know, that's, that's good enough for me.

I, I, um, I, I, I, I've never, I mean, I don't think about that.

Um, maybe by design.

I'm not thinking about it subconsciously, but just leave that one alone.

You got enough to do now.

Don't worry about what's happening later.

Um, yeah.

But now, because you planted the seed, I'm going to spend the

day walking through the factory.

What am I going to be remembered for, right?

And I'm sure some guy in the factory line here will say,

What should I be remembered for?

Just go get us some lunch.

We'll remember you.

We'll remember you all week long if you do that.

But that's a great question.

Sometimes that's a measuring stick, you know.

It's a guideline.

So I, I'll, I'll send you an email on that one.

Thank you.

Well, that's, that's a good answer, though.

And so, Peter, you impressed me as a simple guy, but with a big forward

thinking mission, and I love that.

So, um, for anyone who wants to get in touch with you, um, or with

MidRise Modular, what are some good ways for them to do that?

Well, there, there's two ways.

One is you, you can, the best way to just go onto our website

and, uh, midrisemodular.com.

Uh, if you wanna get into really direct contact with me, you can

go onto demariadesign.com and De Maria Design, uh, website is really

the architectural end of things.

Mid-Rise is where it all comes together as a vertically integrated company.

So we still get hired to do traditional projects.

People think we're pretty good at what we do, but they don't want

to get involved in modular, right?

But we still think all those things we were speaking about,

we can bring to the forefront.

Um, if it works in modular, it does, but if not, we know our

responsibility as architects.

There's one other ways they should simply come onto your podcast, right?

And they get, you've got this interview.

They're going to know all about me just listening to the podcast.

And, uh, and gosh, if I get ahold of this, I'll share this with the potential

clients, this is the way it goes.

Okay.

Speak to Todd, speak to Ryan and, um, you'll get, you'll get an in

depth understanding of what we do and how you can get ahold of us

Well, we appreciate that.

Thank you.

And we will put your contact information in the show notes as well.

So, um, Peter, this has been great.

Thank you so much for your time, uh, for being with us here today.

And, uh, just to let our audience know, we all got in our challenge words.

Ryan, you had the word,

calendar?

you got it in there.

I had Buckeye and Peter, you, your word was, or your phrase was,

there.

Guitar.

And you worked it in well, thank you.

Thank you.

Well, this has been a lot of fun again.

Thank you very much, Peter.

And thank you to our audience for tuning into this very special episode

of Construction Disruption with Peter DeMaria of MidRise Modular LLC.

Please watch for future episodes of our podcast.

We always are blessed with great guests.

Please feel free to leave a review on.

Apple podcasts, or give us a thumbs up on YouTube until the next time we're

together, though, keep on disrupting, keep on challenging, uh, those

challenging those in the world around you to better ways of doing things.

And don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter.

Uh, make them smile, encourage them simple yet powerful things we all can do.

So God bless and take care.

This is Isaiah industry signing off until the next episode

of construction disruption.