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?
Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
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Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#52And have been since the 60's. Here an interesting article about one building, modularly constructed for 1968 World's Fair: https://www.mysanantonio.com/150years/major-stories/article/... And a fascinating documentary https://youtu.be/D7shgCkCfhU?t=573 . I've skipped to the fun part with people riding their hotel rooms up to the building on a crane... but the whole thing is worth a watch if you've got the time.
This is just "plattenbau" but done by californians? Like, prefab highrise has existed for more then 60 years, it is not a new thing?
The Plattenbau were mostly composed of system built concrete panels and frames assembled into rooms onsite, with only the small bathrooms being delivered to site as complete units.
These appear to be structures composed entirely of stacked full-size room unit completed before site delivery and winched into place; but that technique's been around (especially in the hotel industry) for a good while too, although it's only in the last 20 years people have started to build structures of over 10 storeys that way
Nothing's ever truly new. The Romans used prefabricated elements to speed up fort construction in the first century AD.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not so sure. Whats the average lifespan of a house? 50-80 years? To me it makes sense to invest the time to optimize design to make best use of the land area. I guess you could still use somewhat standarized parts though, spend more effort in the design phase.
> I'm not so sure. Whats the average lifespan of a house? 50-80 years? make that a 100 years easily. (atleast in my country). Heck, some houses don't even have architectural drawings because of their age.
My architecture wife said houses today are designed (in the US) to last at least 50 years. However I seriously have my doubts that a house could make it that long without some major renovations/overhauls along the way, given that they're essentially built as plywood sheets, stapled to wood planks, protected by plastic siding, and covered with a tar sheet roof down here where I live. I wish the developers invested more into the longevity of a house instead of pinching every penny they can.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
See this AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar...
Where in that AMA is there a reference to zoning being defined at the state level? I did not see it in the long starting post.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#55I’ve always found it odd that house construction is so bespoke. All that pouring and sawing and drilling and slathering of raw materials to do one-off designs for houses that are then filled with standardized ikea furniture which fits the custom room shape poorly. Manual labor is too costly for such a bespoke approach. Either we make carpenter and bricklayer robots to do the bespoke work cheaply, or we build homes fr…
Well you used to be able to buy a nice craftsman home from the Sears catalog, and many of them are still in use today.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#56The 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…
Agree, but, this would only happen under the same conditions that would incite a bloody revolution.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
See this AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar...
Where in that AMA is there a reference to zoning being defined at the state level? I did not see it in the long starting post.
ohazi never talked about zoning laws being defined at the State level. Just that zoning laws in CA are asinine.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#58I 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
Isn't that how modular homes already work? My house is a modular. The two floors are pretty much identical under the drywall and flooring; it comes as a one or two floor option and from what I've been told they just slap the same floor on top of the first in the latter case.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#59I 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.
> unfortunately due to high housing costs
And housing costs are high because of asinine zoning laws, as OP mentioned.
Re: Developers are manufacturing prefabricated apartment buildings
#60I think that maybe the last thing humanity needs is high density- low quality- apartment blocks, built in ill-planned areas that promotes anonymity and does not promote socially sound communities.
Especially when sold at a high margin, because land value is high.