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Robbie Antonio, Revolution Precrafted

Robbie Antonio

Design-Driven,
Limited-Edition Homes

Editors’ Note

Robbie Antonio currently has 82 million square feet worth of developed, in progress, and managed properties under his belt, being the Founder and President of Antonio Development in New York, Managing Director of Century Properties based in Asia, and now the Founder and CEO of Revolution Precrafted. To date, he has worked with 13 Pritzker Prize architects/firms such as Zaha Hadid, Philip Johnson, Alan Ritchie, Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel, I.M. Pei, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, and Christian de Portzamparc, as well as designers such as Ron Arad, Campana Brothers, Tom Dixon, Philippe Starck, and Marcel Wanders. He has worked with more than 100 notable brands in various fields including fashion, Hollywood, luxury, design and art. Antonio has established the largest number of luxury branded real estate developments across the globe by working with Giorgio Armani for Armani Casa, Forbes Media, Versace, Missoni Home, Paris Hilton, Lenny Kravitz and Wallpaper* magazine. He is one of the youngest and most prolific collectors of international modern and post-war contemporary art in the world. Because of his accomplishments as an art collector, he has received awards from many different organizations. In 2014, Artnet recognized him as one of “20 of the World’s Most Innovative Art Collectors,” while in 2015, he became part of Artnet’s “Top 200 Art Collectors Worldwide.” Artnet also recognized him with two awards in 2016: as one of twelve young art collectors to watch out for, as well as one of the top 100 art collectors for that year. This year, he was cited by BuiltWorlds in its 2018 Mavericks Report as one of “25 Pioneers Who’ve Transformed the Built Industry.” In May 2018, he was named “Real Estate Personality of the Year” by PropertyGuru. His passion for art has also led him to collaborate with artists such as Marina Abramovich, Maurizio Catellan, Francesco Clemente, Damien Hirst, Zhang Huan, David La Chapelle, Marilyn Minter, Takashi Murakami, Julian Opie, and Julian Schnabel.

Company Brief

Revolution Precrafted (revolutionprecrafted.com) is a collection of limited edition, precrafted properties, including homes and pavilions. Revolution Precrafted brings together over 80 of the world’s leading architects, artists, and designers including Sou Fujimoto, Daniel Libeskind and David Salle as well as celebrities such as Daphne Guinness, Helena Christensen + Camilla Stærk and Amar’e Stoudemire to supply transportable, collectible and customizable homes, pavilions, prefabricated museums, glamping, condominiums, hotels, villas, pop-up retail, pop-up F&B, pop-up offices, pop-up co-working spaces, art furniture, etc. to landowners, developers, and end users all over the world. The prefabricated home concept offers a solution by greatly simplifying the process – picking a design from a selection and having it delivered right to your doorstep. Revolution Precrafted breaks the monotony by delivering high-design structures crafted by the world’s leading designers and architects. To date, Revolution Precrafted has projects in the U.S., the Philippines, Myanmar, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Jamaica, Guyana, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Cyprus, Mauritius, Seychelles, India, Indonesia, Australia, Finland and Japan.

Revolution Precrafted Modular glass house by Philip Johnson

Modular glass house by Philip Johnson

You founded Revolution Precrafted in 2015. What was your vision for the company and the opportunity that you saw in the market?

Having a background in real estate, I knew that there was still a lot of demand for homes in the Philippines and around the world. I also knew that customers have their usual pain points when trying to acquire a new home. Homes are expensive, and they take time to build and many people get discouraged. Addressing those pain points was one of the motivations behind Revolution Precrafted.

We want to offer homes that can be built fast at a fraction of the cost of traditional home building. We want to differentiate our products from the usual prefab homes by partnering with global architects, designers and artists to come up with design-driven, limited-edition homes.

How has Revolution Precrafted evolved since its founding and will you highlight the state of the business today?

The company was launched in December 2015 and, since then, we have evolved into a company that offers a diverse number of products, not just prefab homes. We still offer our main core products of prefab homes, pavilions, museums, furniture and pop-up retail, but we have expanded to offer low- to mid-rise offices and buildings.

We are also gearing up for new product offerings such as affordable homes, fintech products and hydroponics. We also intend to offer prefab condos and hotels. We are also now offering licensing for salon, gym and spa concepts under our new company called Renegade Concepts, in partnership with our influencers and celebrities. We feel that its important to always grow so we maintain our success.

Revolution Precrafted Polygon House designed by Ed Calma

Polygon House designed by Ed Calma

How do you describe the benefits and advantages of prefab housing and are these advantages well understood in the market?

Prefab structures are easier and faster to build. By streamlining the construction process, we are able to deliver homes faster and we are able to limit the cost by doing that. Over the past two years, we have been able to educate our customers and partners of the benefits of prefab construction. More than that, they believe in our business model of bringing designer and branded prefab structures.

What differentiates Revolution Precrafted from its competitors?

We are the only branded prefab company in the world. While there are other companies that partner with celebrity architects for a project or two, we have more than 80 of the world’s best architects, designers and artists under exclusive partnership. We expect this number to increase as we expand to develop other structures.

What has been the importance of partnering with well-known designers in helping to grow the business?

They are at the core of our business model. Anyone can build a home, a gym or a spa, but by partnering with design geniuses, we are able to elevate these products to a whole new level. Our designers provide more legitimacy and credibility to our products and to our business.

Revolution Precrafted Butterfly House designed by Elizabeth De Portzamparc

Butterfly House designed by Elizabeth De Portzamparc

Will you discuss the global footprint for Revolution Precrafted and the key markets for future growth?

We currently have a footprint in 28 markets in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, as well as North and South America. For our upcoming new products and ventures, we want to focus more on Southeast Asia because the demand there is great.

Have you been happy with your success in attracting top talent to Revolution Precrafted ?

Yes, I am very happy with the caliber and talent of our people. We have been successful at recruiting high performing individuals who are very much committed to the goals of the company.

What are your key priorities for Revolution Precrafted as you look to the future?

Our priority is to expand our product portfolio and to become a bigger marketplace for real estate projects. We want to be able to link developers and fabricators to customers in order to achieve more cost efficient, quality real estate projects. Over the past two years, we have been successful at growing our network, but we want to expand this network even further so that there are more choices and there is a heavier inflow of orders and projects. We also hope to expand our franchising and licensing business because we believe that it is going to be a significant revenue stream for the company.