Professor Townsend From Cottage to High-rise: Prefabricated Building Components
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- Why Isn’t It Everywhere
Completed in November 2010, one of the biggest hospital prefabrication efforts to date manifested itself in the Miami Valley Hospital Southeast Addition. Skanska Shook, a joint venture between Skanska and Shook Construction, acted on the general contractor on this 484,000 square foot hospital in Dayton, Ohio, and was the party that suggested using this construction method on the project. After getting the green light from the project’s owner, Skanska Shook used prefabrication to help put together its 178 patient rooms and 120 overhead MEP utitlity racks that comprised the project [3]. The identical structure of the patient rooms and corridors, made this project well suited for prefabrication.
 For this project, being able to start building the complicated MEP systems for the hospital before the decks for the various floors were poured saved a massive amount of time [6]. Typically construction on the corridors of a given project can only begin after the walls and roof of a project are completed. However, this hospital job, construction on the five containing prefabricated units began before those floors physically existed [3] (Figure 5). So, when the steel was erected and the concrete was poured for those floors that the prefab units could be hoisted into the building and construction could begin on the rest of those floors.
Why Isn’t It Everywhere? Constructing a building with a fully modular system requires, not only technical expertise from a given contractor, but it also requires the build to be designed in a way that allows for construction of individual pods. There are only a limited number of architects who are willing to subject their artistic expressions to a conglomeration of shoe boxes that can be arranged to make a structure [10]. In addition to layout limitations, there are also physical restrictions on how big a given module can be. Modals must not only conform to the Department of Transportation’s guideline that limit the size of cargo a flatbed truck can carry, but modules also must be light enough to be hoisted into place a jobsite. Because of these size restrictions, architects designing fully modular systems would constantly need to consider the bulkiness of the materials they specify. Limitations of prefabricated building components may be restricted by some local building codes. The Los Angeles Municipal Code, for example, requires certain prefabrication building components to be reviewed by a testing agency to examine how items perform from an engineer standpoint [12]. This process doesn’t typically take less than 8 week and it can be costly. Though prefabrication building components are becoming increasingly more common, costs associated with the rental of warehouse facilities for a prefabrication effort can become costly. Also, the hoisting required for a large modular construction project may add costs that the increase of productivity helped to reduce. Until, fully modular prefabrication in the US become more mainstream and buildings allow for it, do not expect to see a huge increase in massive modular construction projects any time soon.
[1] R. Kaysen. “SQUARE FEET: Squeezing Costs, Builders Take New Look at Prefab.” The New York Times, Jun. 15,2011. [Online], Available: nytimes.com. [Accessed: Feb. 24, 2013]. [2] McGraw-Hill Construction. “Prefabrication and Modularization: Increase Productivity in the Construction Industry,” McGraw-Hill Construction. [Online]. Available: construction.com. [Accessed: Feb. 24, 2013]. [3] N. M. Post. “Racking Up Big Points for Prefab.” ENR.com, Sep. 8, 2010. [Online]. Available: http://enr.construction.com/buildings/construction_methods/2010/0908-prefabpotential-1.asp. [Accessed Feb. 24, 2013]. [4] Modular Building Institute. “Why Build Modular?.” Modular Building Institute. [Online]. Available: http://www.modular.org/HtmlPage.aspx?name=why_modular. [Accessed Feb. 24, 2013]. [5] EggrockModular. “Manufacturing & Installing Eggrock’s Factory-Built Bathrooms.” YouTube.com. [Online] Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlct4U_ImkE. [Accessed Feb. 24, 2013]. [6] cmhopper. “Skanska_Multitrade Prefabrication_ Miami Valley Hospital.” YouTube.com, May 29,2012. [Online] Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgjRUsB8jM. [Accessed Feb. 24, 2013]. [7] C. V. Bagli. “At Atlantic Yards, Ready to Test Plans for Prefab Tower.” The New York Times, Nov. 27, 2012. [Online] Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/nyregion/groundbreaking-soon-at-atlantic-yards-on-prefabricated-tower.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0. [Accessed Feb 25, 2013]. [8] R. Maloney. “Modular High-Rise Breaks Ground in Brooklyn.” Arup.com, Dec. 21, 2012. [Online] Available: http://www.arup.com/Home/News/2012_12_December/21_Dec_Modular_highrise_at_Atlantic_Yards_breaks_ground.aspx. [Accessed Feb 26, 2013]. [9] J. Zarroli. “Prefab: From Utilitarian Home to Design Icon.” NPR.org, Sept. 15, 2008. [Online] Available: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94119708. [Accessed Feb. 25, 2013]. [10] V. Cowles, IV. Interview, Topic: “The use of prefabrication in construction.” Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Southern California, CA, Apr. 3, 2013. [11] Modular Building Institute. “Permanent Modular Construction 2012 Annual Report.” Modular Building Institute. [Online]. Available: http://www.modular.org/documents/2012-PMC-Annual-Report.pdf. [Accessed Apr. 3, 2013]. [12] The City of Los Angeles. “Official City of Los Angeles Municipal Code.” The City of Los Angles. [Online]. Available: http://www.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/?f=templates&fn=default.htm. [Accessed Apr. 3, 2013] Directory: assets -> submissions submissions -> Science and Engineering vs Concussions Abstract submissions -> Contact and Email submissions -> 32 Bit Floating Point Audio Processing The Sky is the Limit submissions -> The Quantum Approach to np-hard Optimization Problems Name: Sam Prager Bio submissions -> Gnu/Linux: Challenges to Opening Up the Operating System submissions -> Electromagnetic Interference: The Reason You Can’t Use Your Phone on Aircrafts submissions -> Professor Harly Ramsey December 4, 2013 submissions -> The Y2K38 Bug by Shalynn Ho Abstract submissions -> The Journey to Advanced Human-Computer Interaction Technologies By Rockeish McKenzie Abstract submissions -> Space Habitats: a distant Dream or Reality? Download 0.59 Mb. Share with your friends:
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