Forum’s June 16th Event Features LA-Based Construction Tech Innovator Dafna Kaplan

Date Posted: May 9, 2023

Posted In: Discussion,

On June 16th, Construction Forum will continue its anniversary year theme “THE FUTURE IS NOW: Celebrating Systems Change”. The Forum is hosting an appearance by Dafna Kaplan, the founder of an LA-based manufacturer of futuristic affordable housing. The event will be held from 7:30-9:30 AM in the Maryville University Auditorium, 630 Maryville University Drive.

The event is free to attend but registration is required. Click here to register.

Dafna Kaplan, is the CEO of an LA-based company called Cassette. Last October Cassette launched their first product, a one-bedroom apartment, designed by architectural luminaries, which is produced in a factory and stacks like Legos.

Dafna Kaplan with Cassette COO Nick Butcher.

Kaplan is no newcomer to the construction industry, or to innovation. In 2020 she won the AIA LA presidential award, which confers an honorary AIA distinction by the Los Angeles Chapter AIA.

In 2022 she was named by Inc. Magazine as, “one of the 10 most innovative entrepreneurs revamping the future.” Asked by Inc. about the number one item on her bucket list, Kaplan, who has lived most of her adult life in LA responded that, “I want to see housing…well-designed housing… available to every Angeleno as a human right.”

Cassette’s first one-bedroom apartment pods are just under 600 square feet, and each includes a bathroom, bedroom, laundry cabinet, double wardrobe, and chef’s kitchen. The interiors, designed by Hodgetts + Fung, feature a bedroom with a large clerestory window to draw in natural light and a sliding wall panel system to enlarge the space further. Finishes have a warm modern style, and cleverly maximize the functionality of every inch of the apartment.

The apartment walls contain a supporting steel structural system that allows them to stack up to six stories high without any external bracing or supports, and the connection is neatly post-tensioned at the roof of the building rather than with slow and costly welding on site. All electrical and plumbing are linked through corridors via panels on each unit that can be accessed without having to enter the finished apartments.

Connecting the Dots

“My career trajectory didn’t make sense to anyone on paper,” Dafna told me. But, as she quoted to me from a graduation speech Steve Jobs delivered in 2005. Jobs said:

“You cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.”

Around the turn of the Millennium Kaplan was the project manager for one of the leading manufacturers of computer accessories. Previously she had worked for Clarion, a manufacturer of OEM sound equipment, which exposed her to Japanese automakers.

She worked next for SPF Architects, a firm perhaps best known for the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. As she met great designers she became fascinated with elegant architectural design incorporated in products (e.g., Michael Graves’ 1984 teakettle for Target).

Dafna learned the construction industry under the tutelage of Paul Matt, of MATT Construction, a legendary builder. An obituary for Matt, who died at 85 in 2017, said that Matt, co-founder of Santa Fe Springs, CA-based MATT Construction, “had put his thumbprint on iconic Southern California buildings from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, to the Petersen Automotive Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art Resnick Pavilion, to the Hollywood Bowl and Wilshire Boulevard Temple restorations.”

An LA architect said that Matt had “a gentleman’s approach to construction, “looking to be “fair and efficient.”

MATT was an early adopter of BIM and other construction technologies, such as augmented reality to help field workers understand how to lay out parametric curves.

In her last year there, Dafna initiated a study of efficiency-driving technology initiatives. She introduced multi-trade prefabrication and industrialized construction practices and initiated deep-tech oversight counsel to evaluate the application of strategic tech to accelerate large project performance.

She became so interested in applying technology solutions to the housing crisis that in 2019 Dafna left MATT and traveled everywhere from Austria to visit cross-laminated heavy-timber factories to multiple Asian countries to learn about various forms of modular building manufacturing

Her manufacturing knowledge, marketing experience, and knowledge of field construction all came together. Los Angeles has some of the least affordable housing and largest homeless populations in the country.

“I was particularly struck that a lot of this could be fixed with manufactured housing if we could get the business dynamics lined up,” she said Through her explorations she noted that there were, “a lot of really smart construction people who didn’t understand manufacturing and really arrogant tech investors who didn’t appreciate the real-world, real-people challenges of the construction ecosystem.”

That is where her humility, respect for the work of others, and willingness to learn came into play. Her work attracted attention and, “I had wind put beneath my sails by large, experienced modular companies who were interested in partnering on supply chain and product development for this new venture.”

Cassette’s combination of laser-focused manufacturing and construction expertise resulted in a strong 2022 product launch with customer letters of intent already in place. While Cassette’s leadership thought that one- and two-person middle-class households would be the primary market, the first two projects are a senior complex and housing for tech workers.

There are no immediate plans to expand the product offerings. “A lot of thought went into this,” Kaplan said. “There are no modifications to the product: You can order the window system or the sliding door system. We want to first be known for doing one thing — exceptionally well — before we launch a second thing.”