In October 2025, CREE gathered its global network for our annual Partner Days, an event which unites the likeminded who believe in a better way of building – to learn, share, exchange, and grow. This time, we met in Stuttgart, the heart of Europe’s automotive industry and home to engineering powerhouses such as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. A city where engineering is not just an industry, but part of the DNA.
It was the perfect backdrop for a transformative theme of the event: “Buildings as Products.”
From the very first presentation, it became clear that this year’s Partner Days would push us to rethink construction more boldly than ever before. And then came a highlight none of us will forget when the stage was given to Roland Sitzberger from Porsche Consulting. Hearing his perspective in the context of the construction industry felt like opening a window into the future.
The speaker drew a vivid picture:
In automotive, a car is never “just a project.” It is a product, standardized where it must be, customizable where it matters, and always designed with assembly, performance, safety, and the end user in mind.
And suddenly, the parallel became impossible to ignore.
Why shouldn’t buildings be like cars?
Why shouldn’t we design them with the same level of clarity, predictability, and user focus?
By the end of the event, it was clear to all of us: from now on, the way we think and talk about CREE buildings will fundamentally change. And the visit to the Porsche factory served as the final spark, demonstrating how precision, standardization, and customer focus can elevate an entire industry.
To capture this moment, we invited Joanna Demkow (COO of CREE), Hubert Rhomberg (CEO & Founder of CREE), and Antonio Carlos Rodrigues (CEO of Grupo Casais) to reflect on what the construction industry can learn from the automotive sector and what transformation is required to redefine our industry’s future.
Hubert Rhomberg:
“In order to take up the idea of the automotive industry, the complexity of buildings must first be radically reduced in the sense of an MVP. This means that cost reduction and scaling first require a simple product/building. It must be able to manage with significantly fewer resources, the number of individual parts/components must be significantly reduced, and an overall construction system must be developed. This means that all products and components are coordinated and function together as a complete system.”
According to Hubert, healthy living, including aspects such as food, housing, and clothing, is becoming increasingly important to many people. Therefore, by creating building environments that respond to this growing demand, CREE transmits to the investors the opportunity to communicate a tangible added value to the market. Thus, CREE manifests itself as a brand for investors that embodies sustainability, speed, and cost efficiency.
Antonio Carlos Rodrigues:
“When we look at how the automotive industry evolved, one thing stands out: cars stopped being projects and became products. That transformation brought predictability, efficiency, and trust. Construction is now walking the same path.
If we want buildings to perform like cars, we must design them as systems – standardized where it creates value, flexible where life evolves. Structure and façade should behave like infrastructure: durable, reliable, and long-lasting. The interior, on the other hand, should be able to adapt and improve over time.
True innovation begins with the user experience. Just as cars became more comfortable, connected, and intelligent, buildings must become intuitive environments that anticipate needs, optimize energy, and evolve through data.
This is why a CREE building is not just real estate. It is a high-performing product – an asset designed to remain relevant, reliable, and valuable across generations.”
Joanna Demkow-Bartlome:
“Both a car and a building can come from a pre-designed, pre-engineered kit of parts. In the automotive world, one chassis can become several different models simply by configuring the components differently. I see buildings the same way especially with systems like CREE. With just a few core components, you can shape an office, a hotel, or student housing. It’s about buildings from a set of components that can be configured to order. You configure, produce, and assemble. In a way, it’s the same logic cars follow when they’re built in a factory.
To put it simply, imagine walking into a car factory with a hand-drawn sketch and asking them to design a whole new car from scratch – new team, new engineering, new components – and expecting it to be flawless, fast, efficient, and cheap. It would be impossible. The engineering costs would be enormous and the risk of failure high. Yet this is exactly how most buildings are still designed: every time a new team, a new approach, a new solution.
At CREE, we try to break that cycle by using a pre-designed, proven set of components, a recipe that reduces risk, increases quality, and finally allows buildings to behave more like today’s cars: predictable, high-performing, and smart.
People desire a Porsche or a Tesla not only for the product, but because the brand’s values resonate with them. Owning it signals something: a mindset, a belief in innovation or sustainability, a sense of identity.
I believe the same happens with CREE Buildings. Owners who choose CREE aren’t just buying real estate – they are aligning themselves with quality, consistency, ESG responsibility, and a forward-thinking approach to construction. It signals that they care about people, about performance and about challenging outdated norms. Over time, that’s how a building becomes aspirational, when it stands for something meaningful and people want to be part of that story.”