Visiting A Sustainable Living Pre-Fab Urban Apartment Building Site

The view from outside

The entrance

The upstairs floor

Quality issues.

walls

The room module floor

Apartments with room modules

Apartment insulation

The kitchen wall

Hello Everyone,

This week I had the opportunity to visit the construction site of some sustainable living apartments that are being built as I was curious how they were looking compared to the normal building of apartments. As there was an open evening, I went along and had a look around.

From the outside, the first thing that you notice is that the construction is made from metal and not from concrete. I asked the project leader if this was safe and could fall down. He advised that it is secure up to 9,5 earthquake. Once inside, I did check how it was fixed to the floor with many large screws and concrete.

Walking through the entrance the construction and rooms are at this stage all laid out in a metal frame. I went upstairs and saw the floors were made from a ply wood and this was wet in many places and damaged. Apparently this should get replaced, but it seems as though the construction didn't consider the rain or they did not put the roof on and covering the building before putting the floors in. Wood + water is not good.

As you can see in the photos, the wall metal frame is filled with an insulation material which should keep out sound and keep heat in. This is covered with a plywood material. I am not sure then if there is also then a paywall material to go on the top of that.

One of the most interesting aspects of this apartment building was that some of the rooms come ready-made in that they are built including walls, floor and bathroom units. You can see the tile floor in one of the pictures which is part of one of these rooms. There were bathrooms and shower rooms ready made with all units including pipework ready made that can be quickly connected.

The other big white blocks were the various kitchen walls. These are pre-constructed kitchens that are just placed in their location and connected up.

The project leader advised that these pre-fabricated apartment buildings apparently are generating 70% of their own energy so should have lower running costs. Also, because they are pre-fabricated, they can be built quickly in just 5 months and therefore be a solution to the housing crisis.

Overall, it was interesting to look around as I didn't see such a construction before and would be interested to see the project a bit further developed to see more the pre-built rooms and how they are connected it. It was like something akin to being in a large 3D-style puzzle and people were putting the pieces together.

Thanks for reading.

All photos are my own.

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