Sapphire Balconies deploys ‘slow and steady’ approach to the Canadian market

Key Takeaways:

• Sapphire Balconies has built a fully modular delivery model that goes beyond the product itself, with modularized processes for engineering, quality assurance, and production that can be transferred to new markets through local partners, enabling speed, consistency, and scalability.
• The company sees Canada as a strong fit for its approach due to the housing crisis and push to accelerate construction, using prefabricated aluminum balconies that can be installed at a rate of 20–30 units per day while supporting sustainability goals, as demonstrated by projects like the Vienna House development in Vancouver.
• Sapphire’s growth to $180 million in revenue is driven by early design coordination, standardized-yet-bespoke balcony systems, and a vertically integrated, globally scalable manufacturing network, allowing it to deliver efficiently across multiple projects and avoid the scale limitations that challenge many modular construction firms.

The Whole Story:

Everything is modular for Sapphire Balconies—not just the balconies.

Their entire delivery approach—quality assurance, engineering, production, and more—is made up of modules that can be transferred and adapted in new markets through local partners.

“You can take it everywhere,” explained Antonio Manchisi, vice president of construction at Sapphire. “We’re modular all the way down to our processes. All of our processes have modules you can pick up and move.”

The company was started more than 30 years ago in the UK by Andrew Parsons. He was doing a lot of typical railing work when he began to see the rise of steel balcony construction on the exterior of buildings. Believing it could be done better, Parsons developed an aluminum industrial offsite system that has since taken off.

After expanding throughout Europe, one of the company’s latest expansions has been into Canada. Seeing the country’s severe housing crisis and the government’s desire to fast-track construction, Sapphire felt a modular approach was a good fit. Their method can complete 20–30 balcony unit installations per day, while traditional methods often take months. After five years in Canada, the international balcony giant is getting the lay of the land and strategically applying its approach. The team believes that slow and steady wins the race.

“Our growth strategy here has been a bit different. It’s very project- and portfolio-focused and not speculative. We weren’t going for everything. We are not right for everybody,” said Manchisi. “We want partners, we want repeat clients—not one-and-done clients. It’s just not how we do business.”

One of their key projects has been Vienna House—a new near-zero-emissions, affordable rental apartment community in East Vancouver developed by BC Housing. Sapphire supplied and installed 70 prefabricated, modular aluminum balconies designed to support the project’s Passive House and mass-timber sustainability goals.

If things really take off, Sapphire has already spent decades building out its global manufacturing capacity. The company has 11 factories across the globe, giving it the ability to produce more than 10,000 balconies a year. Canada also serves as a springboard to the U.S., where Sapphire is already seeing demand and winning projects.

How has the company been able to grow to rake in $180 million in revenue? Manchisi explained that it comes down to a careful process that creates certainty.

Sapphire begins by reviewing drawings early to improve buildability and identify opportunities for standardization, providing key inputs—especially balcony loading data—so structural coordination can start right away while resolving critical interface details like anchors and thermal connections.

The company then “rationalizes” balcony designs by eliminating minor inconsistencies and standardizing repeatable modules, which boosts fabrication efficiency and lowers costs. This streamlined, modular system feeds into Sapphire’s vertically integrated delivery model, allowing the company to tailor manufacturing strategies based on project location for greater efficiency and competitiveness.

Though it creates standardized balconies, each system is bespoke to the project. With its latest generation, Sapphire can integrate brick slips, adjust a variety of aesthetic elements, add curved forms, include glass, and alter the thickness of the cassette. Manchisi likened it to how builders take a standardized seacan but remix it in endless ways.

When it comes to making its modular approach a business success, for Sapphire, it’s all about being able to scale.

“You have to be able to deliver at scale and across multiple projects,” said Manchisi. “That’s where you see a lot of modular companies kind of dying out. They’re not able to deliver at scale. They have a great idea at the scale they’re at, but you can’t grow that way. It’s about spending the time on the processes early on and spending the time on modular thinking early on. That is really what’s going to define a Sapphire versus another company.”