Breaking the Build Barrier: Why AltForm Wants to Fix Construction

Australia has lost 27,000 construction workers in the past year, yet needs to deliver 1.2 million new homes. Traditional building methods can’t bridge that gap and modular construction requires an industrial workforce that doesn’t exist. AltForm executive general manager Tony Phillips thinks his company has the answer: a kit-of-parts system that makes workers 3.5 times more productive. AltForm has developed precision-manufactured steel frames and panels that reduce construction time by 68 per cent while eliminating six different trades from the building process. Now comes the harder part: convincing an industry built on decades-old relationships to embrace something new. With a pipeline worth $85 million and projects from luxury retreats to mass housing developments, AltForm’s challenge isn’t proving the system works—it’s changing how builders think. Phillips is blunt about the industry’s constraints and says AltForm’s aim is to address Australia’s acute construction labour shortage by maximising existing workforce productivity rather than relying on new apprentices. “The number of man hours we have readily available to do what we want to do under the current climate is reducing,” Phillips tells The Urban Developer . “Our labour force won’t keep up with demand. It just won’t. So we need to find a solution to maximise the output of the people we have right now and that’s what AltForm does. “Using kits frees up those man hours on each build and maximises the use of the man hours we have right now and that’s how we are going to be able to make our way through this storm.” ▲ Pre-made aluminium panels arrive sealed with pre-installed windows, doors and junctions. Along with the almost 30,000 construction workers lost nationally during the year to 2025, active apprentice contracts decreased 7.8 per cent in the September 2024 quarter compared to the same period in 2023, and trade occupations declined 1.9 per cent. Australia’s construction workforce is shrinking as demand peaks. Rather than replacing workers or requiring mammoth new infrastructure, AltForm’s approach focuses on making existing trades more efficient. Phillips likens the potential industry transition to historical construction shifts. He sees the kit-of-parts approach as another logical evolution in building methods. “Going from horsehair plaster in the late 18th century into CSR or Bradford made an enormous difference,” he says. “It did end a lot of very interesting skills that we’d used for a long time but it accelerated the build and lowered the risk.” The AltForm system uses one bolt type and one steel beam specification to simplify training and reduce installation errors. Components arrive in stillages containing one day’s installation work and delivery scheduling is adjusted to accommodate site constraints. External building elements, including windows, doors and junctions, arrive sealed and quality-checked, eliminating common construction defects. Steel components weigh less than 80kg and have a maximum length of 4.2m to allow manual handling. Delete Panels can be lifted by two workers and positioned using rubber mallets, eliminating the need for scaffolding or heavy-lifting equipment. AltForm’s system uses a standardised 260mm grid that works with existing architectural software, including ArchiCAD, DWG files and Revit. Architects can design buildings using the company’s components without requiring AltForm’s internal design team. Phillips says this reduces risk in feasibility studies because design teams understand the construction method before developer discussions begin. The company recently completed a twin-townhouse pilot project at Ormond, Melbourne, to demonstrate the system’s performance capabilities. The facade was installed in 28 days. The project allocated nearly $8000 for defect remediation but spent just $600. Current projects demonstrate the system’s scalability across different building types. AltForm’s pipeline includes a 200-villa development at Bulahdelah, NSW, where each villa will take about eight days to reach lock-up stage—a 68 per cent time reduction compared to conventional construction methods. Phillips expects 2 to 4 per cent time savings on each villa after the seventh unit, following established manufacturing principles from automotive production lines. The final 30 villas should require the same construction time as the first six units. The capital recycling benefits might attract developers and institutional investors alike. “They can do three or four of those developments in a year rather than one with the same money,” he says. “They can turn over about 3½ times as many projects per annum they do at the moment if they were to roll out each of their products with an AltForm design.” ▲ Rendering of the Broadbeach Waters project that uses conventional construction for the ground floor and AltForm ’ s system for upper levels. AltForm provides three-day training courses by facade installer PKTA before projects begin. Building crews receive onsite support during initial installations and access to 3D sequence diagrams showing assembly steps. The system extends to three storeys and projects such as Broadbeach Waters combine conventional ground floors with AltForm’s lightweight system for upper levels. Phillips says the flexibility allows architectural customisation without the transport constraints that limit conventional modular construction. Phillips acknowledges the primary challenge involves changing established industry relationships rather than proving technical capability. Builders maintain decades-long connections with traditional trade suppliers, creating psychological resistance to new methods. “That psychological overturn is much harder than convincing people that prefab and kit-of-parts works, because it just does,” Phillips says. The company’s strategy involves gradual integration that preserves existing trade relationships while demonstrating system benefits. “What we want to offer people is a throttle that they can take from 10 per cent to 90 per cent of their envelope depending on how they feel psychologically,” Phillips says. “It’s an easier way in because volume builders can start with 10 per cent of a building—maybe just the front facade—and do the rest conventionally. When they see the results, in theory, they’ll be convinced and slowly add more kit-of-parts builds to their pipeline.” Phillips says conventional approaches requiring additional factories and skilled workers cannot address immediate demand and says his ‘Goldilocks’ system addresses the gap between slow conventional construction and expensive volumetric modular approaches. ▲ AltForm’s Ormond pilot completed facade installation in 28 days with few defects. “The Goldilocks bit is using prefabricated techniques to give flat pack kit-of-parts flexibility for a builder,” he says. “It’s similar to VMC or MMC, but different. We can be a bit more bespoke with the outcome. Still no waste, high quality, all QC’d from a factory. All the same benefits as modular and it’s a lot safer.” Getting missing middle developments to stack up has evaded many developers, but Phillips says that’s because developers haven’t factored AltForm into the equation. The approach enables developers to reassess land acquisition decisions based on faster construction timelines and reduced trade dependencies. “One of the things at the minute that we’re finding a lot of developers are doing is their feasibility on the basis of what they’ve done for the last 10 years and they’re not buying the land,” Phillips says. Australia faces a choice, Phillips says: continue with traditional methods that can’t deliver the housing needed, or embrace systems that maximise existing workforce capacity. “The next milestone isn’t delivering projects at scale—it’s changing the norms of the industry itself. That’s where the real work lies.”

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