Quick: what were the first modular buildings? If you
immediately thought of the famous Sears Roebuck kit homes, you’d be in good
company—even a few Internet sites credit the catalogue company with the first
modular buildings. But when Sears began offering its build-a-home kits in 1908,
modular construction was already more than half a century old.
Born in
(but Erected in
A modular building is defined as one that is fabricated in a
factory and erected onsite. The first record of such a building appeared in theSouth
Australian Record in 1837, in an advertisement for the Manning Portabel
Cottage. The structure was design and built by carpenter Henry Manning,
who built the compnents in
them to
Hundreds of Manning’s buildings were erected in
work was of such quality that one of his buildings, a Friends (Quaker) Meeting
House, still stands in
Viking Carrier
PFS Corporation
Mariotti Building Products
first modular buildings to be popular in
targeted at people moving west, especially those lured to
choose from 44 styles of homes ranging in price from $700 to $4,000. Once
purchased, each house would arrive by rail in a kit complete with all
necessities— from nails to paint—and a detailed list of instructions. Sears
sold over 75,000 houses between 1908 and 1940. Like Manning’s cottages, they
were well built and many have stood the test of time. Over two hundred of the
homes in
homes.
Modular to the Rescue
Though homes made up the majority of modular buildings until
the mid-1950’s, there were some notable exceptions. The most famous early
modular building was a prefabricated hospital built in 1855 during the Crimean
War. Its name came not only from its early innovative use of modular
construction, but from its inspiration: Florence Nightingale. Despairing over
the poor conditions at the hospital where she served, she wrote a letter to the London
Times, asking for help. Five months later, a modular hospital, designed
by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was shipped to the
where it reduced the death rate from 42% to 3.5%.
Modular buildings have provided shelter in other times of
conflict, too. The
used Quonset huts during World War II, while the British employed modular
construction to build Nissen huts and Bellman Hangars. British
citizens were housed in “pre-fabs” after losing their homes in the Blitz, and
many WWII GI’s bought affordable modular homes when they returned home to the
Modular Gets Its Due
In the late 1950’s, the
construction to schools, businesses and medical facilities. Architects like
Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright sang the praises of modular
buildings. There a was a surge of interest in the mid-60s, buoyed in part by
the Habitat ’67 exhibit
in Montreal, an ultra-modern modular housing development erected as part of
Expo 67. But in spite of the attention, modular construction was never really
well respected by most architects and builders—until now.
Now,
dormitory is modular. McDonalds restaurants are going modular. Passenger cabins
on the new Queen Mary 2 are modular.
York City
What changed? Modular construction itself has seen
a few changes. Designers offer more customization options. Construction cranes
with larger capacities have made it possible to erect heavier components. But
the biggest change has been in perception. People now recognize the benefits of
modular construction:
It’s speedy: a U.K. McDonalds contructed and opened a
restarant in a record 13 hours.
It’s less exepnsive. Speed contributes to a cost-savings of
20-30% over onsite building construction.
It’s greener: Some modular buildings are constructed of
“green” materials. Even those that aren’t waste less in the fabrication
process, and materials are more easily recycled since they haven’t been
exposed to weather. Modular construction has a smaller carbon footprint than
traditional construction and produces less noise and vehicular pollution
onsite.
It seems as though modular is finally coming into its own as
people recognize its worth, and designers begin to embrace the idea. “Certainly
within the design industry, it (modular construction) didn’t have much cachet,”
said David J. Burney, the commissioner of the New York City Department of
Design and Construction in a New York Times interview. “But there has
been a sea change, and now there is much less of a distinction over whether a
building has been assembled off-site or on-site.”
by Chris
Polito, a Systems Administrator at Icon Construction.
