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Katerra Inc., a modular construction startup, got an $865 million cash infusion from investors led by SoftBank Group Corp. last year. Now, the company is shutting down a factory in Phoenix and cutting 200 jobs.
The move will shift Katerra’s manufacturing away from Phoenix and into its highly automated and lower-cost factory in Tracy, California.
— Bloomberg
The company's mission is to "shake up the construction industry with a combination of efficient factories, prefab parts and modular construction units," Bloomberg reports. The Phoenix factory will remain open thorugh the end of the year and affected employees will receive a 90-day severance package. View full entry
The world’s biggest hotel company is betting that factory-built guest rooms are a key to juicing revenue -- and helping guests get a better night’s sleep.
Marriott International Inc. is laying plans for what it says will be the tallest modular hotel in the world, in Manhattan’s NoMad neighborhood. Its 168 guest rooms will be assembled in a factory in Poland, shipped overseas and trucked into New York in the middle of the night, when the city streets can accommodate the oversized loads.
— Bloomberg
Marriott International hopes to spearhead a new movement of prefabricated tall buildings with the development of its 26-story, $65 million AC Hotel New York NoMad, announcing that "once erected over a 90-day period, the 360-foot-tall tower will represent a milestone for Marriott’s ongoing... View full entry
[Designed by Edwin van Capelleveen,] the project consists of a modular toolkit of bridges and stairs that are able to connect balconies in any type of building. These connections create a semi-public space which allows neighbors to connect with one another...Edwin, inspired by a housing complex he inhabited in Denmark...wanted to create such a space without having to “significantly alter already existing buildings” — Pop-Up City
The future of U.S. homebuilding depends on more people like Cyndicy Yarborough, a 26-year-old former Wal-Mart clerk with no background in construction. — Bloomberg
In modular construction plants across the nation, robots are putting together lengths of wall, floor and roof elements in panel form that are then shipped to construction sites to help speed up the onsite erection process. In the factories where this assembly takes place, a new breed of worker is... View full entry
In addition to conceptually representing the inherent creativity of play, this touring modular playground made up of 35 white cubes mounted on safety rubber also features inlaid LEDs and a smoke machine, making it ridiculously cool for its target demographic.As Stephan Gustin, one of the... View full entry
Assembled from containers placed within a scaffolding net, WE Architecture's Jagtevj 69 aims to create alluring public space while simultaneously providing temporary housing for the homeless.The proposal stresses that it's a temporary solution; by creating a variety of different spaces for... View full entry
After four years of delayed construction, financial missteps, and lawsuits, Forest City Ratner and Greenland U.S.A. are finally welcoming tenants into 461 Dean Street, currently the tallest high-rise in the world constructed with modular units. The 32-story tower on the edge of Prospect Heights and Park Slope offers sweeping views of brownstone Brooklyn, but its lengthy construction saga highlights the issues developers face when they build with modular construction in New York City. — newyorkyimby.com
The groundbreaking (but not trouble-free) development previously in the Archinect news:Work finally resumes at Brooklyn's modular prefab towerContinued Delays For Housing at Atlantic YardsLego High-Rise: World's Tallest Modular Apartment Tower Getting Snapped Together In BrooklynModular... View full entry
Despite its potential for easy refurbishment and adaptability, the Nakagin Capsule Tower has not exactly fulfilled the hoped-for mission of its designers. A team of documentary filmmakers recently attempted to stay in the tower, only to find the majority of its units without plumbing or much in... View full entry
Researchers from the University of British Columbia have suggested that modular construction techniques are key to assuaging cities' housing shortages.Associate engineering professor Kasun Hewage at UBC, along with PhD candidate Mohammad Kamali, conducted "the first comprehensive review of... View full entry
Shelve your "bigger than a breadbox" jokes—literally. The BrickBox, a storage unit made from marine grade birch plywood, can be used a shelf, a room-divider, or even as porous furniture.Each unit has cut-out handles and nylon connectors that can lock into the grooves of other units without the... View full entry
NASA is hoping a new expandable habitat might one day give astronauts a little more alone time. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will be ferried to the ISS later this spring for a series of tests expected to last several years...experiments will help determine the viability of expandable habitats, which weigh less and occupy less space on a rocket, as laboratories and living quarters for future deep-space missions. — Slate
More on Archinect: How to turn Martian soil into concrete The Mars Ice House envisions the day Earthlings can live with ease atop the Martian surface Newly patented space elevator could take astronauts 12 miles up into the stratosphere View full entry
The sentiment is warm and fuzzy. The design, however, is radical: BIG has imagined a complex that would be unlike any other building in the city – or, indeed, North America. The scheme blends an unusual stack-of-blocks form, and adds a complex weave of public and private spaces underneath and within the heart of the building itself...the effect [Bjarke Ingels] is going for is akin to 'a Mediterranean mountain town.' — The Globe and Mail
More recent BIG projects:BIG to design 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, alongside smaller "Summer Houses" by Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman and Asif KahnBIG in Paris: Bjarke Ingels to design for Galeries Lafayette on Champs-ÉlyséesBIG's concept for a spiraling-landscape tower in NYC's... View full entry
The vertical-farming movement continues to grow with the recent unveiling of FARM-X's modular vertical-farming concept, which the Oakland, CA-based organization developed with Zurich-based Conceptual Devices founder Antonio Scarponi and an agronomy team led by University of Bologna Professor... View full entry
Choi + Shine Architects, who envisioned the beautiful Land of Giants in 2010, developed a new lighting system called the BIT Light™. BIT's name is primarily derived from the Korean word for light (빛) which is somewhat pronounced like "bit" in English. It also stands for Bulb with Integrated... View full entry
The Photon Space is becoming known as the first all-glass modular structure of its kind that addresses the health benefits of exposure to natural light and the importance of those benefits in our contemporary lifestyle — where many of us spend it indoors — and its everyday stresses.Recently... View full entry
