We look at the costs of prefabricated buildings, 15 years ago

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Cost model: Prefabrication

Last week鈥檚 long-awaited housing white paper singled out modular housing as a way to help solve the housing crisis. Back in 2002 好色先生TV was weighing up the pros and cons of prefabricated construction in one of its regular economics slots.

Different builds were compared to see whether non-volumetric, volumetric or modular preassembly worked best. The article focused on glamorous projects such as 91 toilet pods for a City of London office, but what鈥檚 good enough for a City worker鈥檚 toilet will surely be gladly embraced by the rest of the population. The internal finishes did integrate granite, slate and glass.

A modular 750-bed block of student housing was built at top speed to 鈥渆nsure completion for the start of the academic year鈥�. Other reasons for choosing that mode of building included 鈥渁voidance of delay鈥�, 鈥渃ost certainty鈥� and 鈥渁chievement of high-quality construction at a reasonable cost鈥�.

One problem highlighted for developers, however, was 鈩ealing with planners鈭� who tended to favour traditional materials. Presumably that is now a thing of the past 潞

To read the full article from 15 February 2002, download the PDF below

 

 

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