I've often wondered why more buildings aren't made this way.
There'll always be a place for one-offs, of course; and in prestige markets like NYC it'll almost always be so.
But a lot of the world's construction is really quite simple in requirements, and centralising manufacturing must surely make it more efficient overall.
This already happens somewhat for "big box" stores and warehouses, with some adjustment it just seems like an obvious step to me.
I'd be interested in hearing from construction industry experts as to why this isn't already the norm.
All the components used to build a house are indeed created in a very efficient factory. The concrete, insulation, drywall, lumber, nails, electrical -- it's all been driven down in price by centralized manufacturing.
These components still use onsite assembly because of shipping costs. It's obvious why you can't easily ship someone a 1,500 sq ft house from China. Even shipping sub components (like say a wall) is more expensive than shipping someone a stack of 2x4s and some nails and paying someone to nail it together.
Prefab homes exist, but they are more expensive than traditional homes per square foot for nice homes that are bigger than a double-wide trailer, so they remain a bit of a novelty (in the US anyway). The fact that the market has yet to find a way to drive down the cost using prefab makes me wonder if onsite assembly isn't in fact the cheapest form of construction at our disposal today.
> Prefab homes exist, but they are more expensive than traditional homes per square foot for nice homes that are bigger than a double-wide trailer, so they remain a bit of a novelty (in the US anyway). The fact that the market has yet to find a way to drive down the cost using prefab makes me wonder if onsite assembly isn't in fact the cheapest form of construction at our disposal today.
A narrower set of financing options for prefab homes exists as opposed to traditionally constructed homes. That leads to a pretty serious difference in demand, and an awful lot of the price difference might just come from that.
Commercial construction uses a very different philosophy than modular construction. Modular construction uses boxes whose size is constrained by the highway system, and works best when all the boxes are the same. Commercial construction treats the whole building as a single structural box, and then the walls can be non-structural and easily moved around as demands and tenants change. Reconciling those two ideas is hard, since commercial tenants like that flexibility.
These videos of fast-builds are only for commercial buildings that are inherently and permanently modular, like hotels.
The construction industry suffers from the same problem that most ERP Java shops and aerospace contractors do - the only way they can stay in business using their business model is to use cost-plus contracting (software/buildings/military jets) and customize the hell out of their products to rack up the largest bill/longest hours/institutional knowledge (it's their incentives - hence most software projects fail/military jet fiascos/building overruns).
This could also be because some of these programs are actually hard to make (and some are) but it's also due to the fact that they have to keep reinventing the wheel and don't transfer institutional knowledge/expertise across projects or scale out their time.
They'll pursue this through "lowest" bid contracts, sales teams, obscure knowledge (APIs/systems/building codes), "personal networks" and other inefficient and economically wasteful mechanisms to maximise their take.
Product companies don't have this problem.
Prices are non-negotiable, things must meet exacting standards, things must be standardized, their is no institutional knowledge and there isn't any customization.
You get what you pay for - and that's it.
Java shops and aerospace contractors are starting to meet their reckoning with the rise of SAAS apps and vertically integrated companies like Tesla/SpaceX/Solar city. Who wants a customized rocket when I can get an off the shelf fully tested and consistent Falcon 9 for ~$60 million (even less than what China charges)?
Construction is the next industry.
Products > services for the simple reason that they are more cheaply produced, easily sold, iterated upon and created.
Drive around a modern city in Asia and you'll likely see kilometer after kilometer of cookie cutter apartment buildings, with building plans so simple, they could almost be replaced with stacks of cargo containers and a central elevator shaft.
I may be wrong, but I'd be highly surprised if there wasn't a tremendous amount of prefab on display here.
...hallways are uncomfortably narrow; climbing the central stairway feels like clanging up the stairs of a stadium bleacher.
It’s worth noting, though, that the majority of apartment buildings going up in China are equally ugly. Broad’s biggest selling point, amazingly enough, is in the quality.
Comments
I've often wondered why more buildings aren't made this way.
There'll always be a place for one-offs, of course; and in prestige markets like NYC it'll almost always be so.
But a lot of the world's construction is really quite simple in requirements, and centralising manufacturing must surely make it more efficient overall.
This already happens somewhat for "big box" stores and warehouses, with some adjustment it just seems like an obvious step to me.
I'd be interested in hearing from construction industry experts as to why this isn't already the norm.
All the components used to build a house are indeed created in a very efficient factory. The concrete, insulation, drywall, lumber, nails, electrical -- it's all been driven down in price by centralized manufacturing.
These components still use onsite assembly because of shipping costs. It's obvious why you can't easily ship someone a 1,500 sq ft house from China. Even shipping sub components (like say a wall) is more expensive than shipping someone a stack of 2x4s and some nails and paying someone to nail it together.
Prefab homes exist, but they are more expensive than traditional homes per square foot for nice homes that are bigger than a double-wide trailer, so they remain a bit of a novelty (in the US anyway). The fact that the market has yet to find a way to drive down the cost using prefab makes me wonder if onsite assembly isn't in fact the cheapest form of construction at our disposal today.
> Prefab homes exist, but they are more expensive than traditional homes per square foot for nice homes that are bigger than a double-wide trailer, so they remain a bit of a novelty (in the US anyway). The fact that the market has yet to find a way to drive down the cost using prefab makes me wonder if onsite assembly isn't in fact the cheapest form of construction at our disposal today.
A narrower set of financing options for prefab homes exists as opposed to traditionally constructed homes. That leads to a pretty serious difference in demand, and an awful lot of the price difference might just come from that.
Commercial construction uses a very different philosophy than modular construction. Modular construction uses boxes whose size is constrained by the highway system, and works best when all the boxes are the same. Commercial construction treats the whole building as a single structural box, and then the walls can be non-structural and easily moved around as demands and tenants change. Reconciling those two ideas is hard, since commercial tenants like that flexibility.
These videos of fast-builds are only for commercial buildings that are inherently and permanently modular, like hotels.
The construction industry suffers from the same problem that most ERP Java shops and aerospace contractors do - the only way they can stay in business using their business model is to use cost-plus contracting (software/buildings/military jets) and customize the hell out of their products to rack up the largest bill/longest hours/institutional knowledge (it's their incentives - hence most software projects fail/military jet fiascos/building overruns).
This could also be because some of these programs are actually hard to make (and some are) but it's also due to the fact that they have to keep reinventing the wheel and don't transfer institutional knowledge/expertise across projects or scale out their time.
They'll pursue this through "lowest" bid contracts, sales teams, obscure knowledge (APIs/systems/building codes), "personal networks" and other inefficient and economically wasteful mechanisms to maximise their take.
Product companies don't have this problem.
Prices are non-negotiable, things must meet exacting standards, things must be standardized, their is no institutional knowledge and there isn't any customization.
You get what you pay for - and that's it.
Java shops and aerospace contractors are starting to meet their reckoning with the rise of SAAS apps and vertically integrated companies like Tesla/SpaceX/Solar city. Who wants a customized rocket when I can get an off the shelf fully tested and consistent Falcon 9 for ~$60 million (even less than what China charges)?
Construction is the next industry.
Products > services for the simple reason that they are more cheaply produced, easily sold, iterated upon and created.
I believe that in many cases they are.
http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog261/Brown_Seoul/images...
Drive around a modern city in Asia and you'll likely see kilometer after kilometer of cookie cutter apartment buildings, with building plans so simple, they could almost be replaced with stacks of cargo containers and a central elevator shaft.
I may be wrong, but I'd be highly surprised if there wasn't a tremendous amount of prefab on display here.
From the article:
...hallways are uncomfortably narrow; climbing the central stairway feels like clanging up the stairs of a stadium bleacher.
It’s worth noting, though, that the majority of apartment buildings going up in China are equally ugly. Broad’s biggest selling point, amazingly enough, is in the quality.