Research

Victoria’s MMC Statement is a meaningful step. It positions MMC as a practical lever for Australia’s housing challenge: faster delivery, higher quality, stronger cost certainty, and lower carbon. It also signals intent across regulation, approvals, skills and government procurement. But if the goal is scale, the Statement still reads more like a “policy toolkit” than a repeatable operating model. Some pilots struggle to replicate and spread—not because the methods themselves have failed, but because the supporting compliance pathways, delivery mechanisms, and verifiable evidence remain highly project-specific. Transaction costs stay high, lessons don’t compound, and the sector struggles to enter a self-reinforcing cycle of iteration.

Picture this: you’re transported 600 years back to 15th-century China. The emperor, hearing of your unparalleled skill as a builder, summons you to build his new palace. The emperor’s top priority? How soon he can move in. The scope of the palace is quite ambitious: it covers 8,700 halls and rooms of all sizes. The footprint of the buildings alone, excluding gardens and plazas, is equivalent to 15 soccer fields.

Prologue I stand before a painting. Around me are countless visitors to the exhibition, but for a moment they all seem to vanish, leaving me alone with the artwork. It depicts an utterly ordinary riverside meadow, with a few small trees growing haphazardly. Through the branches, glimpses of clean river surface and a stone arch bridge in the distance emerge; there appears to be a figure on the bridge. Wildflowers carpet the ground, and leaves tinged with yellow amid the green speak of a fresh spring day.