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 ...
Big accident according to one school of thought. But curved and offset in housing comes at a big cost, ask any contractor.
This is nothing new, Sterling-Homex did the same thing in Rochester, NY back in the late 60s / early 70s. Of course they went bust in a big scandal.
CORRECTION: Stirling. NOT Sterling. Apparently there is a Sterling Homex company that exists today which is unrelated.
How will all the Governmental and Union officials decide how to change the bribe structure...
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LOL. Thanks for reminding me how smart our President is for thriving in that skunk infested world of big city construction.
Anti-residential regulations and HOAs are a couple of the worst enemies of the people. “Suburban sprawl” isn’t so damaging to the environment. Urban sprawl is: big, dense, artificial concrete, asphalt and chemical footprints on otherwise useful land. Big cities would be more reasonable in the arid, sterile West than in good farm country. Build the big cities in the mountains and deserts. Drill deeper for water. It’s there. Pump it up and treat it, like the harder working people of the lowlands do with muddy rivers.
Hideous but the kids must have a blast playing in those gardens with the dinosaur sculptures. That’s one way to get them outside and off the computer screen.
Quick connect wires and Pex tubing
Stackables for other-side-of-the-trackables.
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