Shaking Up Old School Construction Practices
The city of Quincy, Massachusetts just finished construction on it’s first apartment complex to use permanent modular building technology. The top five floors of the building were created with prefabricated modular units that were hoisted into place with cranes. The article about the complex written by the Patriot Ledger website states that as on-site construction costs continue to rise without any advancement in its practices or technology, the New England region suffers from a serious housing shortage. Permanent modular buildings are quickly being seen as a great opportunity to save on cost and time, and get people into high quality housing faster. The team was able to have the upper floors fabricated off-site at the same time that the lower levels were being built out. The project manager reported that this method saved about five months on the project timeline. That is an incredible time savings just from employing a hybrid solution with permanent modular buildings. The faster a housing complex can be completed, the sooner it can be rented out and the sooner the property developers see a return on their investment.
Saving Time and Effort
Although each project’s requirements are different, the Nova Quincy project was able to receive their permanent modular apartment units with the cabinets, floors, sinks, countertops and closets all installed ahead of time. When it arrived to the site, it just had to be lifted and set into place. This equates to a smaller workforce needed on-site and less of an interruption to the neighboring businesses and residents. It also provides the local population with housing that is desirable and affordable. The Nova Quincy apartments project manager went on to say that the residents would never be able to tell that their home was built with assembled modular technology, and that it will delight them to find out how much quieter the permanent modular units are than traditionally constructed buildings.
The Winds of Change
Articles like this one are popping up all over the internet. The benefits of customized and fashionable permanent modular buildings are fast becoming a popular alternative to traditional construction methods. Adaptive Shelters provides the western United States with custom permanent modular building solutions that save up to 30% on cost and up to 40% off of time to production when compared to regular on-site development. The designs are flexible and constantly evolving to suit the needs of the specific project and its future residents. In perusing articles, one might also see complaints that permanent modular buildings are “hipsterizing” communities, and that sure sounds like the old style construction folks getting nervous about new technology and modern approaches to home building.