Model/Z is a volumetric modular housing manufacturer based in Los Angeles, with a 150,000-square-foot factory in Watts that opened in 2024. Martin Muoto, founder of affordable housing developer SoLa Impact, launched it to cut the cost and time of building housing, and the two now run as independent companies. Model/Z builds modules for affordable and workforce multifamily projects and sells Z/Suite, its software for screening sites and laying out buildings. The company says more than 75% of its assembly line comes from nearby neighborhoods. On Oct. 15, 2026, Model/Z closed a $32 million New Markets Tax Credit deal that funds a working capital line for building modules before site work starts, covering about 800 units of orders for 2026 and 2027.
Seventy modules were set at 6200 Broadway in Los Angeles over ten days. The average was about 22 minutes per module. Groundbreaking was June 2025 and completion June 2026 — 11.7 months for a five-story, 66-unit building.
That project is the proof Model/Z leads with, and the numbers behind it are specific. Sixty-six of the 70 modules are residential and four are utility; the units are one-bedrooms at 419 square feet; 80 percent of them are priced at 80 percent of area median income and the remaining 20 percent at 110 percent.
The company came out of SoLa Impact, a developer that completed 24 projects in four years. Founder Martin Muoto toured more than 20 factories before starting Model/Z, and the two businesses now operate independently. In 2023 the team hired engineers and executives out of aerospace and automotive and built a 150,000-square-foot factory in Watts.
The choice of material is the central technical argument. Modules are structural steel volumetric units, never stick-built, which the company says allows buildings up to ten stories where wood modular typically tops out at three or four. Every unit passes 383 documented quality control checkpoints inside the factory, and modules are approved at state level and inspected before they ship. They arrive wrapped and finished — flooring, windows, appliances, paint, plumbing and electrical already installed.
The catalog is standardized rather than bespoke: studios at 315 square feet, one-bedrooms at 420, two-bedrooms at 732, and three-bedrooms at 834 now in production, each with separate LIHTC and Extended layout families. The LIHTC layouts are the more equipped of the two, adding a high-performance VTAC air conditioning unit, a larger centered window, a semi-translucent bedroom wall with sliding doors, kitchen islands on the larger plans, and optional balcony and in-unit laundry; standard layouts use PTAC window units. Most layouts come in traditional Type IIB for up to five floors or enhanced Type IB MgO board for up to twelve.
Hiring is tied to the neighborhood around the plant. More than 75 percent of the assembly line team live in surrounding neighborhoods and nearly 20 percent are women, with 10 to 20 new hires trained a month and a stated focus on formerly incarcerated people, veterans and people with learning disabilities.
The software layer is sold as Z/Suite: Z/Scout for site identification, Z/Design for layout generation — the company says 90 percent of its construction plans are produced through it — Z/Forma for pro forma modeling and electronic RFPs, and Z/Expediter, which it credits with simplifying more than 127 permitting checkpoints. Engagement starts at $10,000 a month with unit pricing fixed at signing.
The pipeline runs beyond the flagship. 4301 Vermont Avenue at 188 units and 5870 Los Angeles Street at 140 units are in construction; 117 E Carrillo Street in Santa Barbara at 108 units and 105th Street and Central Avenue at 91 units are in planning. Two accessory dwelling units were delivered in Altadena to families displaced by the Los Angeles fires, completed in August and December 2025.
The target client is a developer, owner-operator or development partner working at 50 units or more, across LIHTC, public-private partnerships, affordable, student, senior and hospitality.
