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Modulmatik believes the next challenge is information, not manufacturing.
Vienna-based Modulmatik was co-founded by Ukrainian engineer Michael Doroshenko and evolved from a modular timber manufacturing business into a company focused on modular engineering systems, distributed manufacturing and digital coordination. That evolution has increasingly pushed the company beyond questions of production capacity and into a deeper examination of how information itself moves through industrialised construction. (main image: Developed for Ryterna Modul, the Berlin residential project uses a hybrid system of steel-framed modules and prefabricated panels to maximise factory-based production.)
For much of the past decade, discussion around modular construction has centred on factories, automation, robotics and manufacturing capacity. Yet according to Modulmatik, the industry’s next challenge may have less to do with production and more to do with information.
Speaking with Built Offsite, Doroshenko argues that one of the biggest constraints facing industrialised construction is not the ability to manufacture buildings, but the industry’s ability to capture, organise and reuse engineering knowledge.
“We preserve the solution, but not the reasoning,” he said.
For Doroshenko, that distinction sits at the centre of a growing problem.
While modular construction promises repeatability and standardisation, much of the knowledge that underpins successful projects remains locked inside drawings, spreadsheets, emails and the experience of individual engineers.
Every completed project may leave behind thousands of drawings and documents, but relatively little information about why specific decisions were made, what constraints influenced them or how they relate to other project systems.
As projects become larger and more complex, that information gap becomes increasingly difficult to manage.
Modulmatik’s modularisation process focuses on assessing how projects can be adapted for factory-based production while maintaining structural and commercial requirements.
Why drawings alone are no longer enough
Doroshenko believes many digital construction workflows remain heavily focused on geometry rather than relationships.
Building Information Modelling has undoubtedly improved coordination across architecture, engineering and construction, but he argues BIM alone does not fully address the interconnected nature of industrialised construction.
“We started with BIM,” he said. “We understood BIM alone wasn’t enough to solve all modular project challenges.”
Instead, Modulmatik has been developing approaches based around semantic data structures and digital coordination systems.
In simple terms, semantic modelling attempts to structure information not merely as drawings or objects, but as connected relationships between materials, manufacturing processes, logistics, regulations, costs and assembly systems.
Under such a framework, a wall is not simply a wall.
The system also understands:
When changes occur, downstream implications can potentially be identified automatically rather than through manual coordination.
“If you change something, change all of this,” Doroshenko said.
Modular construction behaves more like manufacturing
One of the recurring themes throughout Doroshenko’s work is the idea that modular buildings increasingly resemble manufactured products rather than conventional construction projects.
He points to the complexity of even relatively simple modular components.
A single detail may require input from structural engineers, fire engineers, acoustic specialists, production engineers, lifting specialists and transport engineers before reaching a final solution.
The challenge is not necessarily creating the solution itself.
The challenge is retaining the logic behind how that solution was reached.
“We often lose the logic behind why a particular solution was chosen,” Doroshenko said.
That becomes particularly significant in modular environments where components, systems and assemblies interact continuously throughout design, manufacturing, transportation and installation.
“It is much closer to automotive manufacturing than traditional construction,” he said.
The comparison is notable because automotive manufacturers typically operate from highly structured data environments where design intent, manufacturing logic and supply chain information remain connected throughout the production process.
Construction, by comparison, often remains fragmented.
Distributed manufacturing increases the challenge
The issue becomes even more important as modular production expands beyond single factory environments.
Modulmatik increasingly works across multiple manufacturers and regions, supporting projects that may involve different factories, different supply chains and different regulatory environments.
In those circumstances, information becomes the primary coordination tool.
Rather than relying on a single factory’s internal knowledge, systems need to understand relationships between:
Doroshenko believes this is where semantic modelling and structured data become particularly valuable.
The goal is not simply greater automation.
The goal is creating systems capable of understanding how decisions influence other parts of the project ecosystem.
A different conversation about industrialised construction
Much of the modular sector continues to focus on productivity, labour shortages, automation and manufacturing capacity. Doroshenko does not dismiss those challenges, but he argues they are only part of the picture.
Factories can be expanded.
Machinery can be purchased.
Production lines can be upgraded.
What remains more difficult is capturing and scaling engineering knowledge.
For Modulmatik, the future of industrialised construction increasingly depends on the industry’s ability to move beyond static drawings and disconnected workflows toward systems capable of understanding relationships, constraints and decision-making logic.
Whether that future ultimately arrives through semantic modelling, AI-enabled workflows or some combination of both remains to be seen.
What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that the next phase of industrialised construction may be defined as much by information architecture as physical manufacturing.
This is the second article in a two-part Built Offsite series examining Modulmatik’s evolving approach to industrialised construction, semantic modelling and distributed manufacturing.
Find Modulmatik HERE
