Prefabricated Apartment Buildings coming to Marinwood/Lucas Valley? Why not?

[Editor's note:  Saw this interesting article on prefab apartment building to share with you. One of the "problems" with non-profit housing is that it is outrageously expensive due the the tax incentives which are monetized to sell on the private market.  A much more intelligent way to build is with modular construction where costs can be sliced. We get MORE housing for less cost.  Isn't that our goal?]

See Article in the New York Daily News 

Inwood gets the city’s first prefabricated apartment building

Broadway Stack, a 28-unit modular building, is just the first of many to come.

GLUCK+
A final rendering of the Inwood building shows how the stack modules will work.

By the end of the summer, uptowners can live in a Lego house: the city’s first concrete and steel, multi-story prefabricated building.

Broadway Stack is a 28-unit moderate-income apartment complex built with 56 prefabricated modules. The modules were assembled off-site in a former subway car factory and then shipped to Inwood, where they are being stacked to form a seven-story tower.

“It’s an exciting alternative method of construction,” said Stack’s architect Peter Gluck. “As the country urbanizes there is more and more need for modern and low-cost housing, and this one response.”

Prefabricated, modular construction is having a New York “It” moment. In Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner has broken ground on a SHoP Architect-designed modular building that would be the world’s tallest.

Work is also in progress for nARCHITECTS’ My Micro NY, the winner of Mayor Bloomberg’s contest for ergonomically designed apartments.

But prefab housing used to have a negative connotation.

“In America there’s a stigma attached to prefabrication,” said Allison Arieff, author of “Prefab,” and editor and content strategist at a San Francisco-based urban planning institute. “People picture trailers and mobile homes.”

But prefab design isn’t limited to cheap, ugly, and identical boxes.

“It can really look like anything,” said Gluck. “I don’t think these apartments look cookie cutter, they’re totally different from each other.”

Builders and architects like prefabricated housing because it allows more control over a project.


Pre-fab modules are raised and stacked at an innovating building currently under construction in Inwood.

And using the pre-built units dramatically reduces the duration of construction, which in turn stymies costs associated with insurance, labor, and rental equipment.

According to Stack’s developer, the project saved 15% compared to more traditional construction, and the work will finish in 11 months instead of 16 for a ground-up apartment building.

“The quality is superior because construction is all done in a controlled, interior space as opposed to outside where the you have to deal with the cold, wind, and other elements,” said Gluck.

Architects and developers love it, but union workers don’t. At Ratner’s Brooklyn tower, some contractors — already smarting from reduced wages on prefab jobs — are suing over alleged safety violations.

Prefab may be hot right now, but it isn’t new.

Arieff traces prefab housing back to 1624 when wood panels were shipped from England to Cape Ann. Edison designed a prefab concrete house, Sears sold prefabs by mail order, and visioneer Buckminster Fuller was interested in mass-produced, efficient housing that could be easily assembled and disassembled.

“Prefab is a very cyclical thing, it comes and goes every 10-20 years,” said Arieff.

But the creators of Broadway Stack think this time it’s going to stick around.

“It’s here to stay,” said developer Jeffrey Brown. “It makes too much sense to ignore.”







Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/prefab-buildings-inwood-article-1.1408115#ixzz2hFsnG1kO