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. 12 Feb 2019 <strong>M11</strong>
Apple Park 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.
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