Commonly known as the ‘Tesla of Housing’, modular housebuilder Etopia wants to stage a revolution within the industry. Liam Turner caught up with its founder and CEO, Joseph Michael Daniels, to find out how the company is combining modern methods of construction, sustainability, and bleeding-edge tech to create the housing of the future
Joseph Michael Daniels speaks at a speed that mirrors today’s pace of technological change. It’s as if he’s racing to keep up with the latest innovations and developments while also figuring out how they might fit with his grand ambitions.
“We’re working on two additional versions of our construction-panel technology,” Daniels begins.
“Some scaled partnerships and agreements have been in place for the Middle-East. We’ve just launched our USA division, so we’ve got some research and development in the USA…And then as sustainability is taken up in the UK specifically, as planning is evolving, the climate change emergency is real, construction needs to change…Over the course of the next five years, we’re hoping to maybe quadruple our operations.”
It’s this turbocharged tempo that has seen Etopia, the ECI-tech (energy, construction, and intelligent technological design) company Daniels founded in 2015, scale up its UK production to more than 2,000 units per year, with plans to increase that number to 10,000 a year by 2030.
But Daniels wants to go much further. He wants Etopia to be at the head of a long-overdue housing revolution, one that merges modular housing, innovative technology, and sustainability into one tight, hyper-focussed package, with each ingredient as crucial as the last.
And he’s wasting no time in getting there.
More than modular
Etopia is a housebuilder focused on the delivery of modular construction, one of seven categories of modern methods of construction (MMC) formally defined by the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government. In Etopia’s case, volumetric, self-contained units are produced in one of two UK-based factories, together producing over 2,000 homes a year.
But although modular is core to Etopia’s operation, Daniels doesn’t think it should be spoken about that much.
“Who really cares about modules?” he says. “Do you think consumers do?
“Do you care if your house is modular? Or do you care about the fact that actually, it’s a building, it’s intuitive, that I can buy my Bose and it automatically connects, I can buy my smart appliances, I can buy cool gadgets, I can buy my phone, it will synchronise.”
“Who really cares about modules – do you think consumers do?”
Modular may not be as sexy as other aspects of Etopia’s offer, but it is essential. By using its proprietary construction panel, for example, Etopia can build the shell of a home in just three days – that’s 57 fewer than the industry average. The panel is also super light-weight, the heaviest version coming in at 97kg; super strong, with a structural loading strength of 80 tonnes; and super safe, designed to withstand hurricane-strength winds and slow the spread of fire.
Going modular has also enabled Etopia’s rapid growth, and will play a large role in reaching the company’s goal of delivering 100,000 homes worldwide each year by 2030.
Daniels’ reticence to praise the virtues of modular could be attributed to its checkered prefab-haunted past. Then again, it could be because all the gadgets and gizmos that go into Etopia’s modular homes are just that much cooler.
Brick by digital brick
Etopia is often referred to as the Tesla of Housing – and not without good reason. The two companies share many similarities, not least grand ambitions for their respective industries. Where Elon Musk wants makes an electric car that can go from zero to 60 in fewer than two seconds, Joseph Michael Daniels builds a house so energy efficient it blows the roof off conventional rating systems. As he says, it all comes down to the tech.
“It’s now more than ever that we think, damn, wouldn’t it be nice if my home was more intuitive, I wish I actually knew what my home was doing, how it is heating itself and how fresh air is brought in,” Daniels explains.
“In the age of information, that information should be inside the home as well.”
All Etopia homes come with a suite of high-tech digital features such as blinds with auto-shading, a sensor that can detect volatile organic compounds and pollutants, and a proprietary IoT (internet of things) system that can seamlessly integrate with other smart ecosystems such as Amazon and Google.
Etopia is even developing a top secret ‘gaming engine’, which will combine building design, technology, and live performance into a singular planning application that can be interacted with and altered.
Though Daniels is tight-lipped on the project, his excitement is plain to see.
“The only thing I think I can say is that using your house or buying a house will be more similar to using the Tesla when you sit inside it,” he saus. “It’s going to be pretty incredible.”
Etopia’s hardware is no less impressive. In August last year, the company announced a partnership with Samsung, which agreed to supply 5,000 of its proprietary smart air-source heat pumps to Etopia homes, as well as some other appliances such as fridges and washing-machines. In return, Etopia works with Samsung on its smart platform.
“We’ve also, as part of our IoT company, integrated a lot of their technology, so it will be useable with every home we build,” Daniels explains.
For Etopia, it’s just another piece of the puzzle. “How do you create a connected environment?” Daniels asks. “You do that by working with leading tech companies in the world.”
Beyond net-zero
What this all means is that Etopia can produce high-quality homes quickly, at scale, and most importantly, ensure their manufacture and operation are ultra sustainable.
By combining unique technologies in construction, and IoT, and energy, Etopia is able to construct a hyper-performing building fabric and building exterior superstructure with a highly engineered interior, supplemented by renewables and an ability to control and audit nearly every one of these components.
Add in sensors that assess the ambient environment, and what you’re left with is an intuitive, smart building that actually saves C02 instead of producing it.
“The simplest way to explain it is to…imagine a Nest 5.0 and a smart-home functionality that actually took in all the information,” says Daniels.
“The outcome of that and all of these building parameters – what we use on our windows, everything we use – is then encompassed in an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). That EPC basically says, okay, this is how much energy this space will need, and based on the systems you use, this is how short or quick they’ll run and these are the renewables they’ll require. That’s how we got to [our] EPC.”
The problem is, with an average score of 103 and a high of 105, Etopia homes can’t properly be measured on a standard EPC scale – it just doesn’t go that high. Instead, Daniels turns to the World Bank’s EDGE Green Building certification to more accurately convey Etopia’s green credentials.
“Using your house or buying a house will be more similar to using the Tesla when you sit inside it – it’s going to be pretty incredible”
The accreditation, which recognises resource-efficient and zero-carbon buildings, was awarded to Etopia earlier this year, making it the first residential developer in the world to receive it.
“Where the energy performance certificates are looking at how much energy you use, what EDGE does is it evaluates where it is, and it evaluates the energy it generates, the energy it uses, the embodied energy to manufacture it, and the water usage – and then it provides an outcome,” Daniels explains.
“So, it’s much more thoughtful in design and outcomes. We’re keeping EPCs, but as the bank starts to recognise EDGE, we’ll be redeploying this new EDGE green building certification across Britain.”
High stakes
Daniels’ ambitions for Etopia are big – but so are the problems he’s trying to tackle. While the UK battles a very real housing crisis, the wider world is scrambling to put the brakes on an even realer climate crisis.
“There’s not just a housing crisis: there’s a planning crisis, there’s a land crisis, there’s a climate crisis, and there’s a homelessness crisis,” says Daniels.
“The housing crisis is led by a planning crisis, which is led by a land crisis, which is led by an opinion crisis, and all these things feed back.”
If, as Daniels puts it, if Etopia scales properly, it could provide a solution to the housing crisis while also helping to ameliorate those other crises with which housing finds itself entangled. But he stresses that no one person or organisation can face these challenges alone.
“What’s important is that we address the overall problem,” Daniels says. “It can be addressed, it can be solved. We are a solution…and we’ve got to band together.”
He adds: “It’s achievable. It just needs a lot of work and the best, brightest, and most passionate people getting together to do it.”
Main image: Joseph Michael Daniels, founder & CEO, Etopia
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