a.aa MMC M11 52pp Web

article
Tech giants investing in offsite
Offsite construction offers a wealth of benefits to all who utilise it within their project. It can halve build time, encourage a 95% recycling
rate, provide an 80% reduction in waste, and result in a higher quality of building due to tighter controls imposed on the factory floor.
All of the signs and signals suggest that
this is the direction we are heading in as
an industry. The World is poised on the
brink of a modular revolution, with industry
experts predicting that 30-40% of construction
in Britain alone will be built offsite within the
decade.
It comes as no surprise then to see tech giants
beginning to invest heavily in offsite throughout
the World. It was only a matter of time. Let’s take a
look:
Amazon
Online retailer Amazon (the 18th largest company
by revenue in the World) is one such behemoth to
commit to offsite, recently investing in a homebuilding
start-up company called Plant PreFab,
who deliver prefabricated homes. This is their first
move into prefab construction; aside from being
the biggest online retailer, Amazon is perhaps
better known for smart home technology. Plant
PreFab, based in Rialto, California and is set to
become the latest addition in Amazon's Alexaintegrated
homes. Amazon's Alexa Fund invested
in Plant PreFab for their prefabricated single and
multifamily houses and their plan to use
automation to build homes faster at lower costs.
Paul Bernard, director of the Alexa Fund, said
"Voice has emerged as a delightful technology in
the home, and there are now more than 20,000
Alexa-compatible smart home devices from
3,500 different brands."
Plant Prefab believes factory-built homes can
address new building systems and affordability
through automation. They claim to be the first
home factory in the nation focused on sustainable
construction, materials, processes and operations.
As Paul Bernard stated, "Plant Prefab is a leader
in home design and an emerging, innovative
player in home manufacturing. We’re thrilled to
support them as they make sustainable,
connected homes more accessible to customers
and developers."
Plant Prefab says its approach reduces
construction time by 50% and cost by 10-25% in
major cities.
"We aspire to make the process of building a
home far easier, faster, and less expensive in
major cities," says Steve Glenn, Plant Prefab's
CEO. "And part of this effort involves making sure
our homes meet our clients lifestyle needs, and
having greater and more effective smart home
technology and integration is part of that. Amazon
is certainly a leader in this domain and we hope
and expect to learn much from them."
Amazon already has a deal to pre-install Alexa
with Lennar, the largest homebuilder in the US;
the new addition of Plant PreFab could
dramatically shape the future of Amazon's smart
home integration…
Home 2.0 is on its way!
Google
Silicon Valley heavyweight Alphabet, Google's
parent company, is also investing in offsite, to the
tune of approximately $30 million to provide
temporary, prefab housing for 300 of its
employees.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that
Alphabet is making a significant investment in
modular housing built and shipped in from
elsewhere by the start-up Factory OS, because
the current local offerings are so overpriced. San
Francisco rents have jumped by almost 50%
since 2010, while home prices have increased
98% since the bottom of the market in 2009.
Alphabet's modular apartments are expected to
be affordable. In a Wall Street Journal article,
Factory OS founder and CEO Rick Holliday said
that "a previous project that Holliday built using
modular technology saved tenants $700 a month
in rent because of reduced construction costs."
Facebook
In a recent blog post, Facebook announced plans
to turn the 56-acre Menlo Science & Technology
Park they bought in 2015 into a company town,
dubbed the Willow Campus. Located across the
street from the company's current campus, it will
include a grocery store, pharmacy and shopping
center. Facebook employees will only have to
cross the street to commute to the tech giant's
Menlo Park headquarters.
The blog post said "Working with the community,
our goal for the Willow Campus is to create an
integrated, mixed-use village that will provide
much needed services, housing and transit
solutions as well as office space."
15% of the 1,500 new housing units the company
plans to build will be affordable, priced below the
market rate.
The concept of a model village, such as Willow
Campus, is nothing new. The 18th and 19th
century saw a paradigm shift in how employers
valued their workers. Realising the productive
benefits from having a happy and healthy
workforce, many companies ceased to merely use
and abuse people at will and began investing
heavily in quality housing for employees, creating
thriving communities throughout Britain.
There are at least 28 model villages in Britain,
built from the late 18th century onwards by
landowners and industrialists for their workforce
to live in.
However, this village won't exclusively house
Facebook employees. Facebook have stated that
they plan to open up the units to the community
at large. This means that Facebook are stepping
into the housebuilding market, delivering homes
for the public in a modular way.
Research suggests that affordable housing is
much needed in the Bay Area, where prices
have reached such insane heights that some
Facebook engineers reportedly asked Mark
Zuckerberg for help paying rent.
Apple
Last year Apple moved into their new campus,
known as Apple Park. The facility incorporated
modular construction techniques and was
supposedly designed with painstaking attention
to detail to maximize opportunities for creativity
and collaboration and to capture founder Steve
Jobs' complex vision for the space.
The $5 billion campus covers 2.8 million square
feet, accommodates 12,000 employees in one
structure and includes a fitness centre, an
energy plant and large apricot orchards.
According to Apple, the reason for housing so
many employees in one facility is so that
workers build relationships with those outside of
their team, share ideas with co-workers with
different specialties and learn about
opportunities to collaborate.
The building is divided into modular sections, or
pods, some of which are intended for working in,
others for social activities. Everyone from the
CEO to summer interns will be placed into these
pods, helping employees build connections and
discover mentorship opportunities.
In summary
The companies mentioned above are advancing
a variety of construction methods to build
ambitious development projects that reimagine
everything from the wood used in homes to the
ways we think about private vs. communal
space.
It goes without saying that offsite has come on
leaps and bounds in the last few years and will
only become more and more popular as large
tech companies such as Facebook and Google
continue to bring it into the public eye. Attitudes
need to change, but the future is looking
modular.
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Feb 2019 M11