A half-length double-wide!....."
Posted on 12/15/2018 4:16:54 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Fast Company reports on a Chicago company that is betting big on modular apartment construction.
Just beyond the snowy streets and neatly packed three-flats of Chicago’s southwest side, the factory at 3348 South Pulaski appears like a low gray monolith, spanning nearly 10 normal blocks and serving as a boundary between the residential neighborhood and the city’s industrial freight hub.
Inside, the Chicago general contractor Skender is setting up what amounts to an apartment factory: An assembly line that will crank into gear in the spring, producing standardized apartment units ready to be bolted into a steel-framed stack on a building site. Modular construction is more than a century old, and in contemporary America, it’s seen mixed success–but the 63-year-old general contractor, which launched a separate entity for its modular arm, Skender Manufacturing, last year, believes the technology is worth investing in.
On a recent afternoon, its executives showed off the company’s first prototype: A white-walled one-bedroom (fully furnished with a Nest thermostat, Crate and Barrel 2 platform bed, and scent diffuser) that glowed like a beacon on the otherwise darkened factory floor. When the first apartments come off the line next year, they’ll be transported only a few miles away for assembly on a 110-unit condo building in the city’s West Loop. After that, the company plans to begin production on a three-flat design and healthcare-focused hospital rooms....
(Excerpt) Read more at builderonline.com ...
. . . and it looks ridiculous. The geodesic dome is a good concept, but not particularly appealing to the eye.
You are such a purist! LOL.
I would like a little bit of sunlight during the winter.
I’m not buying ANYTHING unless it’s designed by Architect/Marine Biologist/Importer-Exporter/Author/Latex Manufacturer, Art Vandelay!
*SMIRK* :)
Near FSU somebody constructed tiny houses, several dozen on a lot that formerly had a single family residence. I have three tool sheds full of materials that are larger. I suppose if all you own is some clothing and an iPhone you can live there. I have a full compliment of plumbing, concrete, electrical and other types of tools. Plus, I have several cars and all the stuff required to work on them.
I rent seven homes and what I’ve noticed is renters live stuffed in with twenty times more “stuff” than I have. Mostly, useless stuff. Several are renting storage facilities and literally pay for their stored stuff over and over.
“Modern” Soviet style housing simply doesn’t work for people. The thinking is similar to, “people don’t buy small cars because manufacturers don’t make small cars. Therefore we’ll force manufacturers to make small cars by penalizing mileage.” Then, people buy trucks and SUV’s.
The natural market for tiny houses is young people who have not yet accumulated “stuff.” The question is, how many of them will be interested in committing to a non-acquisition lifestyle in the long term? I suspect that there may be a fair number, especially in big cities where housing costs drive long commutes for non-rich people who need space. Downsizing is hard, but if you live stripped down from the start, accepting the discipline is easier.
Modular housing construction is not the problem.
Home Owner Associations are most likely the problem.
Straight lines are cheap, curved lines are not.
Oh look! A half-length double-wide!
LOL - not quite sure what to call that!
Exactly.
The creation, apart from man’s intervention, sure has a lot of curved lines, the planet being a sphere and all. What to make of that?
Isn’t that somewhere in Netherlands or Denmark?
If they are building them in Chicago they will be know as “kill zones” regardless of price.
Prudhoe Bay
I like that dino on the lower right.
The next mental health crisis will be claustrophobia. It is a major reason why I got out of the Navy.
If the walls are fabricated in modular pieces, how is the electrical ran from wall to wall?
This image shows death defying stairs, some with as many as 20 steps! Any ice or rain on them makes for a life-changing (or life-ending) event for young or old. Anyone climbing them would have to be in perfect fitness. No forgetting that bag of kale in the car for that second trip.
At my old age climbing the stairs would be doable-——but coming down would be sheer hell.
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