Re:Katerra wanted to transform construction. It burnt $2B an...
by jaclaz on Saturday October 30, 2021 @08:02AM
(#29048117)
Many many years ago (think about late '80's, early 90's) I was somehow involved in a division of the building company I was working forat the time (in Italy) dedicated to pre-fabricated buildings (not your typical solo villa, rather multi-apartments blocks).
The head of the division was a very experienced and extremely smart technician, with some 20+ years expereience specific to pre-fabrication.
The base ideas were three:
1. have a small number of pre-made, tested, industrialized/industrializable designs/blueprints, with a somewhat "modular" approach
2. build these faster and cheaper
3. profit
At the end of the experience (several years/projects built) the results were that there was no way to re-use the same blueprints on different projects, due to a number of different reasons, local rules, size of the land lot, preferences (either technical or purely aesthetic of the client), whatever, each blueprint had to be modified/adapted/changed and at the end it took as much time and money as starting from scratch a new design.
Then it came out (again, in practice) that building pre-fabricated (and then transported and assembled) at the same (high) quality level as built on spot costed roughly the same.
It was only much faster, but I believe this mainly because you built panels/structures/etc. with highly specialized people, inside a perfectly tuned pre-fabrication area, protected from bad weather, with all the materials readily available, etc., and because of the much more accurate planning possible.
The head of the division was a very experienced and extremely smart technician, with some 20+ years expereience specific to pre-fabrication.
The base ideas were three:
1. have a small number of pre-made, tested, industrialized/industrializable designs/blueprints, with a somewhat "modular" approach
2. build these faster and cheaper
3. profit
At the end of the experience (several years/projects built) the results were that there was no way to re-use the same blueprints on different projects, due to a number of different reasons, local rules, size of the land lot, preferences (either technical or purely aesthetic of the client), whatever, each blueprint had to be modified/adapted/changed and at the end it took as much time and money as starting from scratch a new design.
Then it came out (again, in practice) that building pre-fabricated (and then transported and assembled) at the same (high) quality level as built on spot costed roughly the same.
It was only much faster, but I believe this mainly because you built panels/structures/etc. with highly specialized people, inside a perfectly tuned pre-fabrication area, protected from bad weather, with all the materials readily available, etc., and because of the much more accurate planning possible.
No profit.