Baltimore Modular (BMOD)

Baltimore Rebuilds Baltimore.

Rebuilding Baltimore and our region through Industrialized Housing Delivery

Construction workers in hard hats and high-visibility shirts frame new wood walls and floor trusses inside the stripped brick shell of an old rowhouse.
Credit: City Life Community Builders

Who we are

Catalyst & Hub

Baltimore Modular (BMOD) strives to be a catalyst and hub for Industrialized Housing Delivery (IHD) efforts across the Baltimore region, adapted for scalable scattered-lot infill construction, vacancy reuse and rehabilitation, and existing homeowner stabilization.

Baltimore is our motherboard: rather than displace or replace, we develop standardized interfaces linking existing conditions and stakeholders with industrialized housing products.

More about BMOD

A green industrial robot arm on a floor rail works on a wood-framed wall panel inside a factory.
Reframe Systems microfactory · Credit: Christina D. Long

Start here

How we can work together

Rebuilding Baltimore takes residents, builders, researchers, government and funders working as one ecosystem. Start with the door that fits you.

  • Residents & homeowners

    Rebuilding should start with the people already here. Tell us what your home and your block need.

    Share your needs
  • Community organizations

    Bring your neighborhood’s priorities to BMOD’s workshops and pilot planning.

    Join the conversation
  • Developers & CDOs

    Talk with us about pilots, demand aggregation and existing-conditions assessment for infill and rehab.

    Explore Develop
  • Manufacturers & builders

    Help shape a modular product platform for Baltimore’s rowhouses and a local microfactory.

    Explore Design & Make
  • Researchers

    Collaborate on existing-conditions data, supply chains, workforce and policy research.

    See our research
  • Government

    Work with us to streamline permitting, codes and zoning for industrialized housing across the region.

    Explore Impact
  • Funders

    Choose what you fund: pilot-ready projects, or the systems-based approach of BMOD’s six hub activities that lets projects scale.

    Talk about funding
  • Not sure where you fit?

    Send us a note and we’ll connect you with the right person.

    Connect with us

The BMOD Hub

Six activities

The BMOD Hub is to be both a physical space and a virtual network for six distinct — but often overlapping — activities.

  1. Impact

    Align regional government, education, industry and community stakeholders around friction-reducing, systems-based strategies.

    More about Impact

  2. Design

    Refine, with a manufacturing partner, a modular product platform of interchangeable modules for new infill, retrofit and homeowner stabilization.

    More about Design

  3. Make

    Establish a flexible Baltimore microfactory (2D + 3D systems) within a BMOD innovation hub activating the local supply chain.

    More about Make

  4. Develop

    Advance integrated project delivery frameworks for industrialized housing: predevelopment tools, demand aggregation and streamlined existing-conditions processes.

    More about Develop

  5. Work

    Drive industrialized housing workforce development: apprenticeships, technical and professional training, and wraparound services.

    More about Work

  6. Augment

    In development

    BMOD is exploring how AI agents could support its other five activities, drawing on public data and our partners’ expertise. Today this is research and planning; we will share what we learn as pilots are tested.

    More about Augment

The need

An interconnected crisis

  • 11,481

    vacant buildings in Baltimore City

    Source: Baltimore City DHCD, September 2026

  • 21,620

    vacant lots in Baltimore City

    Source: Baltimore City DHCD, September 2026

  • 1,677

    older residents waiting for City home-repair help

    Source: Baltimore City DHCD testimony to City Council, May 2026

Featured project

EPA Region 3 Thriving Communities

Photogrammetry model of a long row of vacant three-story rowhouses in brick, formstone and red paint, many with boarded windows and failing roofs, divided house by house by pale section planes.
Credit: Brent Sturlaugson

A planning grant that funded ecosystem convening, an existing-conditions process taxonomy, a conceptual product platform and rowhouse pilot, microfactory feasibility and workforce research.*

The project is complete, and its final reports have been submitted. BMOD is now exploring how to build on the research and publish it in academic journals.

Three all-stakeholder workshops

Read the project story

* For the project titled “Baltimore Modular (BMOD)”, Christina D. Long, Ethan Cohen, Brent Sturlaugson, and Kamalesh Panthi served as subcontractors to the Maryland Center for Construction Education and Innovation (MCCEI) under the EPA Thriving Communities Grant administered through Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI). In this capacity, BMOD team members provided leadership on research, design, technology, and community and stakeholder engagement in support of the BMOD project, which focuses on offsite construction strategies for housing revitalization and workforce development in Baltimore.

The path

Building credibility, stage by stage

  1. Year 0

    Planning

    EPA grant complete: concept platform, pilot design, hub and workforce research.

  2. Year 1

    Pilot

    20+ properties, a mix of retrofit and infill.

  3. Year 2

    Microfactory

    Local, vertically integrated production; jobs and supply chain.

  4. Year 3

    Scale & Replicate

    Demonstrate, integrate, systematize: a model other legacy cities can adapt.

People

Board of Directors

BMOD is an independent Maryland nonprofit governed by its Board.

Meet the team

  • Portrait of Christina D. Long

    Christina D. Long, AIA

    President

    Design & Systems Integration Lead

  • Portrait of Ethan Cohen

    Ethan Cohen, AICP

    Secretary

    Planning & Partnerships Lead

  • Portrait of Richard Manekin

    Richard Manekin

    Treasurer

    Real Estate Development Lead

Research

Research with Morgan State University

Faculty at Morgan State University have worked with BMOD since its start. Their research grounds our work in Baltimore’s real houses, costs and supply chains.

  • Portrait of Brent Sturlaugson

    Existing conditions

    Scanning and analyzing Baltimore’s rowhouses, led by Brent Sturlaugson, RA, director of Morgan State’s BEAR Lab.

  • Portrait of Kamalesh Panthi

    Construction management

    The safety, risk and cost of renovating rowhouses, led by Kamalesh Panthi, PhD.

  • Portrait of Ziping Wang

    Supply chains

    The companies and capacities an offsite housing industry in Baltimore would need, led by Ziping Wang, PhD.

Meet our research collaborators

 

Events

Upcoming

Conference session

The Urban Modular Playbook: How Cities are Accelerating and Unlocking Modular Construction for Housing

Speakers
Christina D. Long, AIA, with Angela D. Brooks, FAICP, Chief Housing and Urban Development Officer, City of Philadelphia
Conference
2026 National Modular Housing Conference, Modular Home Builders Association, November 16–18, 2026
When
Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 3:00–4:00 p.m.
Venue
Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles, Chantilly, VA

Event details for The Urban Modular Playbook

Connect

Join the BMOD ecosystem

Tell us who you are and which of BMOD’s activities matter to you, and we will connect you with the right person.

Connect with us

Prefer email? Write to info@BaltimoreModular.org.

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