Prefabrication experiments - 339 - 10-storey building assembled in one day

Speed - prefabrication, industrialized building is promoted as a quicker alternative to conventional construction. Large building chunks and sub-assemblies can be made and then assembled in a factory while site preparation and foundations proceed on site. This parallel task completion challenges the linear process that usually characterizes building construction. Apart from task overlapping, most industrialized building systems are also designed to facilitate on site setting and systemic itemizing as a way of rationalizing coordination. The integration of details to simplify assembly is illustrated by a new modular building platform presented by Chinese promoter, Broad Group. The proposal uses three interrelated concepts: a proprietary stainless steel stressed skin panel for floors or walls (the b-core), standardized grid for regulating x,y and z dimensions, and folding appendages for floors and bay windows. The box-stacking concept goes up in record time; A 10-storey building was assembled in a single day. 

 

The b-core is a composite stressed skin panel with stainless steel plates as skins structuring aligned steel tubes. The robust panel can span both vertically and horizontally and is used to manufacture the boxes. As the shipping container like volumes are delivered they are installed over steel beams that span adjacent vertical modules. Floor plates are then unfolded from the basic prism over the supporting beams. The 2,4x12x2,7 m boxes create a checkerboard pattern of masses and voids. The service (module) versus served space (unfolded slab) arrangement is repeated vertically as the volumes and unfolded slabs are aligned and stacked by anchor points at their corners. Analogous to shipping container connections, the anchor points are used to lift, set and attach each unit in place. Once in place, other hinged factory made accessories like balconies and bay windows are also unfolded into place. Architectural variability is limited to a number of planning configurations, which ultimately maintain all normalized details and speed of erection; standardization is key.  All interior elements and systems are 100% completed in a factory maximizing prefab theory; speed is not only linked to overlapping of tasks but manufacturing as much as possible leaving only foundations and assembly work onsite.

Stackable container-like units - from Broad Group