Out of four teams competing at our Rising Star Showcase, the Carlsen Center announced that Folsom-based Core Envision was selected as the winner in the Sustainability category of the Accelerate California competition sponsored by CalOSBA.  The win includes a $50,000 prize.

Core Envision’s innovation is a relatively simple and low capital-cost method to build homes faster with dramatically less labor and substantial savings in the amount of lumber (and trees) required.  Mauro Sica, the founder of Core Envision, is an Italian immigrant, architect, and construction manager with a strong background in software and prefabrication. Over the past decade, Mauro has focused on making the framing process faster, clearer, and more efficient.  What many outside the construction industry don’t realize is how much room there is for improvement. Studies show that only 37% of on-site time in residential construction of the structure — the framing — is truly productive, and that 7% of all framing lumber — millions of trees — is wasted each year. The rest is lost to blueprint confusion, jobsite delays, rework, and waiting for missing details. It’s not that people are doing anything wrong — it’s that the process itself is increasingly complex.  Core Envision was created to solve this hidden but critical problem — with a relatively simple and low capital-cost method that builds homes faster using fewer labor hours and significantly less lumber.

Mauro and his mentor and co-author of the “bible” on framing, Nick Ridge, had a realization that changed everything–instead of sending prefab components to the jobsite, why not send more intelligence?  The result was Core Envision’s two-step method:  (1) software to read complex blueprints that translates them into clear tablet instructions; and (2) custom pre-marked layout tapes that can be stapled to standard lumber showing exactly where every cut should go.

The early results have been impressive.  In using his system to build 4 demonstration homes, Mauro saw construction times drop from 8-10 weeks to frame a typical home to just 2 ½ weeks.  The amount of now-very-expensive lumber was cut 7% simply by making optimal use of each piece and avoiding mistakes.  Moreover, the shortage of experienced carpenters was overcome by enabling less-skilled workers to work with clearer instructions. 

Mauro has been seeing a lot of interest from major builders and from custom builders.  Unlike manufactured pre-assembled components, Core Envision would save time and money on one-off custom homes as well as tract homes, giving homebuyers new flexibility in a more affordable home. He sees the big box home stores as a good outlet as well, serving a DIY market.

Congratulations and best wishes to Mauro and the Core Envision Team.