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Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

nytimes.com

41–50 of 189 posts

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#41
post #22

It's also gaining popularity in the hotel industry. Inspiring video: http://www.guerdonmodularbuildings.com/modular-now-marriotts... It has many benefits for the construction teams. They can work in a controlled environment, and focus on technical skills versus getting through urban commutes, live in lower cost of living areas (in this case Idaho), all the tools/materials are there, have quality assurance processes,…

Thanks for the Video Link. It answer a lot of the question I had previously.

One problem I thought that was not solved were finishing. It turns out they actually do all the finishing before it is shipped. And because the finishing, construction, are all done indoor and in house, my guess is that with Air Condition they will / could work much faster, higher efficiency, and more importantly, there should be less sloppiness.

But then Another question I had as shown in the video, wouldn't all the room be limited by the 40Ft Container Size that fits in the truck?

How much of those labour, once moved indoor, could be full automated?

Can you built a 50 floor + building / Hotel with these modular tech? How does it work in area where you have special construction requirement like earth quake zone.

Are the factory mobilise? i.e, Assuming this take mainstream, would a manufacture of those unit have to ship 100s of containers across the country to have these fitted? Because all the time saved are now bottlenecked by transportation of these blocks. Are we going to ship them overseas?

Making the hotel from 2 years to 9 months sounds like a big Win. But in places like China or Japan. No one has 9 month to wait for a construction. China has a 30 floor hotel built from Zero to fully working hotel in less then 3 months.

Other then time and quality, are there any actual cost savings?

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#42

I wonder how hard it would be for mobile home manufactors to support the modular stacking of units. It would look redneck as hell, but could probably go up even faster then wooden prefabs that still needs a building finished around it

You could build the external structure and a "floor" (steel plate) for each level, then you could swap out trailers if needed, a vertical trailer park.

Would need some way to get up and down and toilet/water.

Tbh by the time you've done all that you might as well just build a normal modular high rise (that's how the local budget hotel did it, nearly whole thing turned up as a series of containers each prefitted with plumbing and power, then stacked together, hooked up and done, it went up insanely fast).

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#43
post #8

I find it hilarious that a CA company is leading the charge in new, efficient, high-quality pre-fab design and construction. These units are going to improve construction quality and lower costs in every state except CA, thanks to our asinine zoning laws.

What are the state zoning laws? As far as I know, the state constitution leaves zoning as an issue for the cities/counties to handle. Is that your beef or are there laws on the books I'm ignorant of?

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#45

The problem is the price of buildable land, not the buildings on it.

Absolutely, land estate prices are totally insane in the more gentrified areas. The building itself is nearly irrelevant, see Vancouver rare land plots for measure... or most of the UK. What is in dire need is a fundamental legislation change, where the entirety of the real estate is no longer a market open to speculation, but a fundamental right of the individual and is well proportioned to any income range within a…

Hong Kong has been breaking records after records in the most unaffordable places on earth to live, ranked by Median Income and Median Price of Housing.

Agreed. I think the solution is, Property should not be an investment vehicle. At least it should be taxed and regulated. Although another / the major reason to what we have now is QE, pushing asset prices up.

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#46
post #41
post #22

It's also gaining popularity in the hotel industry. Inspiring video: http://www.guerdonmodularbuildings.com/modular-now-marriotts... It has many benefits for the construction teams. They can work in a controlled environment, and focus on technical skills versus getting through urban commutes, live in lower cost of living areas (in this case Idaho), all the tools/materials are there, have quality assurance processes,…

Thanks for the Video Link. It answer a lot of the question I had previously. One problem I thought that was not solved were finishing. It turns out they actually do all the finishing before it is shipped. And because the finishing, construction, are all done indoor and in house, my guess is that with Air Condition they will / could work much faster, higher efficiency, and more importantly, there should be less sloppi…

I think the strategy is to make the apartment/condo floorpans in units of container shipping dimensions and connect them onsite. The key application appears to be the micro-unit.

It can handle the earthquake zone as one developer describes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC0fyFtbaQk

It would likely be automated as much as a Tesla car could.

You could probably ship from overseas as I suspect the micro units have similar dimensions as a shipping container. I'd imagine building in the midwest (i.e. Idaho/Nevada factory to support West Coast) would probably be more optimal.

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#47
post #8

I find it hilarious that a CA company is leading the charge in new, efficient, high-quality pre-fab design and construction. These units are going to improve construction quality and lower costs in every state except CA, thanks to our asinine zoning laws.

What are the state zoning laws? As far as I know, the state constitution leaves zoning as an issue for the cities/counties to handle. Is that your beef or are there laws on the books I'm ignorant of?

Yes, the problematic zoning laws exist mainly at the city level. The problem is that the decisions about key areas are being made by people who are incentivized to make housing prices go up (because they own property), which they do by severely restricting construction of dense housing.

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#48
post #44

China has been able to do this for at least 7 yrs now. 30 Story building in 15 days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdpf-MQM9vY

Does anybody know how's the quality of that building ?

Good question, although the specs claimed look very appealing...

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#49
post #31

What I want is an MVP house (room + bathroom + kitchen), which I can expand ( extra rooms, extra bathrooms, etc ). Normally with construction, when you add stuff, you need to break stuff, but if there could be a modular housing system that would let you expand without destruction, while being competitively priced, I'd do that. In Elon Musk fashion, it would have to be better than a normal house, right? A modular hous…

If you have land and looking at somewhat high-end: https://www.bluhomes.com/homes-landing/origin These are popular in Tahoe and Napa.

2 Bed, 2 Bath with a combined kitchen and living room, all for the low, low price of $330k? For what is essentially a double-wide with fancy siding and big windows? Haha, nope. If I had land, I could easily build something twice the size or plop down a mobile home for 1/10 of the cost. But that is the true issue with housing these days: finding affordable, available land in a desirable area.

Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings

#50
post #8

I find it hilarious that a CA company is leading the charge in new, efficient, high-quality pre-fab design and construction. These units are going to improve construction quality and lower costs in every state except CA, thanks to our asinine zoning laws.

Actually its driven by the need for localized labor and unfortunately due to high housing costs, labor can't afford to live in downtown SF/LA and so a lot of time is wasted getting to the job site from the outer suburbs.
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