Luxury ‘Lego Set’ Homes Slash Build Times

A devastating series of floods and storms in South-East Asia nearly a decade ago has led to an innovative construction system that could play a signicant role in solving Australia’s housing crisis. Thanks to the Federal Government’s ambitious goal for 1.2 million homes to be built in the next five years, innovative construction methods are gaining greater attention. “We need to build more quality homes quickly. Prefab and modular housing gives us a chance to do that,” Federal Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic says. Among the innovators coming to the fore is AltForm, an idea conceived 10 years ago, leading to the founding of the company this year by facade industry veterans Alex Imvriotis and CY Lim. AltForm executive general manager Tony Phillips tells The Urban Developer the concept grew out of the founders’ travels through flood-ravaged South-East Asia in 2014. Imvriotis and Lim at the time were positing how to build houses for the flood survivors by putting “something in a shipping container that’s got five homes in it”. From that napkin-design conversation evolved a sophisticated building system that combines highrise curtain wall technology with a patented structural steel frame that reduces build times by up to 45 per cent. The system’s efficiency lies in its simplicity. Prefabricated components arrive onsite predrilled, colour-coded and numbered and ready to assemble. Single-storey homes can be assembled in 10 to 15 days and two-storey homes in 20 to 25. “It all arrives in stillage from overseas through the Port of Melbourne ... labelled, numbered and colour coded. All the builders need to do is erect it like a Lego set,” Phillips says. ▲ The Eastlakes AltForm prototype sold for $2.31 million in March. The system’s first test was a four-bedroom, three-bathroom contemporary family home in Sydney completed in 2023. It provided valuable insights for the company. Learnings from that Eastlakes project have led to 3 per cent reductions in construction time thanks to changes to delivery, packaging and the way stillage—the packing for the components—is ordered. AltForm’s current showcase is a $5-million Victorian prototype comprising two luxury townhouses at Ormond, 17km south of the Melbourne CBD. Phillips says that, weather permitting, the curtain wall at Ormond will be completed in 28 days. While seemingly far from its crisis housing origins, this high-end application also demonstrates the system’s versatility and market viability, the firm says. Each component undergoes rigorous quality control, with panels receiving “seven or eight checks before it’s even touched onsite”, Phillips says. ▲ The patented structural steel frame system is fabricated in AltForm’s factory engineering house. The construction method offers significant advantages beyond speed. “AltForm as a system makes building cheaper, through a reduction to the construction timeline and all the costs associated with that time,” Phillips says. “But with only a couple of residential prototypes we can’t quote definitive cost savings, yet. But we’re working on it.” The system creates an exceptionally clean working environment and improved safety conditions. “You’re not having people walking up on rafters. It’s all going in with a scissor lift and small crane. These panels are only 100kg—a few people can lift them in,” Phillips says. The panels feature compressed insulation and sheet aluminium extrusion, creating what Phillips describes as “high-performance stuff that acoustically performs outrageously well”. The air-sealed compartment system with gasket ensures superior thermal performance. ▲ Phillips says anyone who ’ s built a curtain wall can put the panels in. The timing of AltForm’s innovation coincides with pressing national challenges. The Australian building industry produces 27 million tonnes of waste annually. That’s 44 per cent of the total waste created in Australia. “Solving Australia’s housing crisis isn’t just about building more homes—it’s about doing it smarter, faster and at scale,” Phillips says. “Traditional construction methods can take up to a year to complete a single home and often struggle to scale due to delays and resource constraints, which aren’t looking to improve in the short to medium term—especially domestically.” Alternative uses may soon include retrofitting existing buildings. “We could use it for retrofit, though we haven’t done that yet,” Phillips says. ▲ Final renders of the Ormond townhouses, which are expected to fetch around $2.5 million each. AltForm’s efficiency extends to the planning phase—Phillips says the system’s permitting timeline from the conceptual idea to putting it in front of a planning agency or registered building surveyor might be half that of traditional builds. “If we can in-house design this, we’re not waiting on consulting engineers and different people to co-ordinate drawings,” Phillips says. Work has gone into ensuring building surveyors understand and feel confident with the system, with the company investing in educating local authorities about how the system aligns with National Construction Code requirements and fire rating standards. “We don’t want them to feel there’s risk in innovation,” Phillips says. “We want them to feel comfortable with innovation.” Streamlined commercial-like fabrication techniques mean housing can be delivered in a “kit of parts” form to anywhere in the world, which Phillips says is “a huge step in making disaster relief more accessible and giving regional or isolated communities greater access to better quality housing in times of need”. AltForm is developing smaller, more specialised-use accommodation for global scale and rollout. ▲ The AltForm team: Daniel Yeung, CY Lim, Alex Imvriotis, and Tony Phillips. With two further developments in Victoria entering their detailed design phase, 14 confirmed residences in the pipeline and more in negotiations, AltForm is establishing itself rapidly. “This isn’t just about building homes,” Phillips says, “it’s about redefining the future of housing and providing real, scalable solutions to the crisis. “It means developing great designs that are flexible enough to be used for disaster relief, and sophisticated enough to be the future of luxury offerings.” Despite the system’s potentially revolutionary impact, Phillips resists the label of construction pioneer. “It’s about taking skills we already have and using them differently, thinking outside the box and doing things differently. That’s what will give us the greatest change.” You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

Luxury ‘Lego Set’ Homes Slash Build Times

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