Kit Switch: Modular Interiors for Sustainability, Resiliency & Dignity

Housing Venture Lab cohort members Armelle Coutant and Candice Delamarre founded Kit Switch in response to two phenomena in cities around the country: newly vacant commercial buildings and the rising demand for affordable housing. With combined backgrounds in architecture design, biology, and civil engineering, Coutant and Delamarre created an end-to-end tool for the adaptive reuse of buildings. "We want to enable our urban environments to change and evolve from the inside out for greater circularity and resiliency," says Coutant.

Kit Switch provides modular interiors, starting with kitchens, for sustainable new construction and building reuse. Their modules are designed for easy installation, so units can be installed without slowing construction during renovations or upgraded quickly with minimal disruption to residents in existing homes. This reduces cost and timeline and retains design flexibility.

For Armelle and Candice, the 2023 Housing Venture Lab provided the chance to strengthen their product-market fit. “The Housing Venture Lab grew our network across the housing ecosystem. It helped us expand upon our previous customer discovery efforts and better understand market segmentation,” says Coutant. They also found a supportive community of peers in the cohort: “Discussing our goals and challenges together helped our co-founding team build more clarity around our vision, values, and leadership.”

Housing Venture Lab Director Kara Murray-Badal says Kit Switch is tackling a particularly challenging element of modular housing. “Kit Switch is cracking the modular code by addressing the hardest parts of the home to build, which could transform how we approach commercial reuse.”