Sustainable Business Spotlight: Reframe Systems

This month’s Devens Forward Sustainable Business Spotlight features Reframe Systems, an innovative homebuilding company bringing a new approach to housing construction to Devens. At Adams Circle, Reframe is developing 12 new for-purchase homes, including nine market-rate homes and three income-restricted homes, while demonstrating how digital manufacturing, high-performance design, and lower-carbon construction can work together.

The project is putting a remediated former Army housing site back into productive use and supporting Devens’ broader goals around sustainable redevelopment and expanding housing opportunities. For Reframe, Adams Circle is also a chance to demonstrate a construction model designed to deliver high-quality homes more quickly and efficiently.

Building Homes Differently

Image source: Reframe Systems

Rather than constructing each home entirely on site, Reframe fabricates major components at its Andover microfactory. Software, robotic workcells, and CNC systems automate repetitive production steps and precisely measure and cut materials, while builders focus on assembly and finishing.

This approach allows fabrication to happen indoors at the same time that foundation and site work is underway in Devens. Each Adams Circle home consists of six modules that can be delivered and assembled on site in a single day. Reframe says its production model can deliver homes three times faster than traditional construction.

The process also supports Reframe’s efforts to reduce the carbon associated with building materials and construction. Reframe estimates its approach results in 30% less embodied carbon than the average U.S. home, in part by using more biogenic materials, reducing concrete, precisely cutting materials, and limiting construction waste.

Sustainability from the Factory to the Homes

Image source: Reframe Systems

Sustainability is also built into the homes themselves. The Adams Circle homes will be all-electric, with a projected HERS score of approximately 40 and highly insulated, airtight building envelopes designed to Passive House standards. They will also be solar-, battery-, and EV-ready.

Reframe and MassDevelopment have also incorporated lower-impact materials and construction practices into the project, including a low-concrete foundation system that reduces conventional below-grade construction, TimberBatt cavity insulation, high-recycled-content building products, FSC-certified wood, and a concrete mix designed to reduce cement content. These strategies reflect priorities outlined in the Devens Embodied Carbon Reduction Guidelines, adopted in 2023 as part of the DEC’s Unified Permitting Process. The guidelines encourage project teams to reduce embodied carbon by designing lighter and smarter, minimizing concrete and other high-impact materials, choosing lower-carbon alternatives, using materials efficiently, and reducing construction waste. Reframe’s precision manufacturing process supports several of these goals by helping reduce material waste while incorporating lower-carbon material choices into the homes.

As MassDevelopment noted, “There’s real value in demonstrating how these approaches can support housing development.” While Adams Circle includes just 12 homes, the project offers an opportunity to demonstrate practices that could be applied to different housing types and sites as Massachusetts works to expand housing production while reducing the environmental impact of new construction.

That sustainable approach extends across the Adams Circle site. The development incorporates porous pavement, on-site stormwater infiltration, biofiltration swales, native landscaping, and a layout designed to preserve existing vegetation and limit disturbance to adjacent steep slope areas. MassDevelopment is also improving the surrounding infrastructure at Adams Circle, including roads, sidewalks, utilities, street trees, and stormwater systems.

A Partnership Taking Shape

Reframe credits the Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) with being an active and accessible partner throughout the permitting and construction process. Even before permits were submitted, the DEC worked with the team on project design, programming, and sustainability goals. That early coordination helped Reframe identify requirements, resolve questions quickly, and keep the development moving through review and construction.

“The DEC has been an active and accessible partner throughout the permitting and construction process,” Reframe shared. That coordination is especially important to the company’s production model, which depends on aligning design, permitting, fabrication, and site work to keep homes moving efficiently toward completion.

Recent tours have offered a closer look at that progress. DEC representatives have seen work advancing at Adams Circle, where the first home is nearing delivery and foundation work is progressing for the remaining units. MassDevelopment staff also recently toured Reframe’s Andover facility to see firsthand how digital building models, robotic fabrication, and detailed production instructions are used to improve precision, quality control, and durability.

Reframe expects to deliver the first Adams Circle home this fall, with its certificate of occupancy anticipated later this year. From there, work will continue toward completing all 12 homes. As Reframe advances a broader pipeline of 114 units in other communities expected for delivery over the next year, Adams Circle provides a local example of how faster housing delivery, high-performance homes, lower-carbon construction, and sustainable land development can come together in Devens.