This post is ultimately going to be about architecture, but bear with me while I get there. The international standard for paper sizes has three series: A, B, and C. From this standard comes A4 paper, which many of you might recognize as the most common paper size in the world, serving as the standard for most business documents. However, not all countries use this sizing. Canada and the US, for instance, use Letter-sized paper instead of A4, which is simply a result of a historical norm. Canada tried to switch to the international standard (ISO 216) when we started adopting the metric system in the 1970s, but our deep economic integration with the US made it simply too cumbersome to juggle different sizes of paper.

The beauty of A4 paper is that it follows something known as the Silver Ratio (which equals 1 : √2 or 1 : 1.414). Its exact dimensions are 210 x 297 mm. What's important about this ratio is that it allows for a perfectly recursive system. It works like this: A0 paper is 841 x 1189 mm (the same Silver Ratio) or exactly one square metre. If you fold this paper in half along its long side, you get two pieces of A1 paper with the exact same ratio. If you repeat the same fold, you will then get A2 paper, and so on, all the way down to A10 paper. The Silver Ratio is the only rectangle where, when you fold or cut it in half, the proportions stay exactly the same. This is a neat feature because it means there's no waste when manufacturing different paper sizes.

So, what does this have to do with architecture?

Well, the Silver Ratio is heavily embedded in Japanese architecture and heritage. In fact, it's also known as the "Japanese proportion." It has long been appreciated for the scale it creates — it's more square and humble, as opposed to rectangular and grand — and for the modularity that it affords. Indeed, the recursive nature of the ratio makes it practical for construction and perfectly suited to the Japanese concept of mottainai, which is a term that describes a deep sense of regret when things are wasted. A good example of this concept in practice is the recently completed Circularity Cabin by architect Takaaki Fuji. A simple family home made from standard store-bought timber, the 60 m2 structure follows a strict modular system to minimize waste and improve efficiency.

Mottainai might be my new favourite Japanese concept.

Cover photo by Takuya Seki via Never Too Small

My internet friend Bobby Fijan is one of the founders of a mission-driven company called The American Housing Corporation. It was founded in 2024. They opened their first factory in Austin in 2025, and they're now actively working on their first collection of modular homes.

The mission is both simple and awesome: The American middle class can no longer afford a family-oriented starter home in the cities they love. This has people leaving cities, abstaining from having kids, and forgoing economic opportunity.

To correct this, they're going back to what they refer to as "the original American urban home" — the rowhome. And they're working to perfect it through vertical integration and a modular approach where prefabricated components are built in a factory and then shipped flat-packed to the site.

They're obviously not the first company to try to reduce the cost of new housing through prefabrication, but they believe that total vertical integration will make them different. And boy, would I like to see them succeed.

If we truly want to bring down the cost of new housing, we need to (1) stop taxing it like we want less of it and (2) think of it in every possible way as a repeatable product and not as a custom prototype.

Good luck, team!

Photos from The American Housing Corporation

We have been talking about prefabricated and modular buildings for so long that it's easy to think it might never happen. (Here's a related post that I wrote back in 2015.) There are also lots of groups that have tried and failed. Perhaps the most high profile is the bankruptcy of off-site construction company Katerra, which had raised some $2 billion in funding, but for whatever reason(s) couldn't figure things out.

That said, I'm starting to get the feeling that change might actually be underway in our industry. Over the last few months we've been talking about startups like Nabr. But there are many others, including Factory OS, which has been quietly building affordable housing in California (presumably far away from here). To date, they have completed 10 buildings and over 1,200 units, and they have another 24 or so buildings in the pipeline.

This feels promising to me. And I think it's being aided by our current environment -- costs are way up and people are desperately searching for efficiencies. But if this is really going to transform our industry, I think we're going to need to be willing to make some sacrifices. Standardization and efficiency likely means making some concessions around design and overall specificity. Not every project can be custom, as is generally the case today.

That likely means that cities and communities will also need to become more forgiving when it comes to urban design guidelines. Could you please step your building back right here and follow this oblique angle that lines up with this important historic datum line? Nope, sorry, can't. Our production line can't accommodate that sort of change. Would you like the most affordable housing possible with today's means or would you like a custom design?