March 4, 2019

Proposed project would bring 167 affordable housing units to East New York using modular construction

Hoping to create affordable housing more quickly and at a lower cost, New York City is turning to cutting-edge construction methods. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced on Monday plans to develop 167 affordable housing units in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York using modular construction. The $70 million project would become the first under Mayor Bill de Blasio's Housing New York 2.0 program to use this method of building on property owned by the city. As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, officials think modular construction could reduce the project's timeline by 25 to 30 percent.
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November 16, 2017

Framlab proposes 3D-printed modular microneighborhoods to shelter NYC’s homeless

The growing population of homeless New Yorkers is sending creative agency Framlab up a wall–literally. The Oslo- and New York City-based agency has proposed a way to provide shelter for the city's homeless in an arrangement of 3D-printed micro-neighborhoods comprised of hexagonal modules designed to attach to a scaffold structure, creating a second layer of properties, basically, alongside a building's empty wall (h/t designboom). In the project, called "Homed," the modular pods can be clustered together, creating a "cellular mosaic" with their fronts facing the street.
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May 1, 2015

VIDEO: Watch a 57-Story Skyscraper Go Up in Just 19 Days

While New York City developers have been laser-focused on bringing us the world's tallest residential towers, the Chinese are in pursuit of another marker: building them the fastest. A 57-story skyscraper was recently completed in Changsha, Hunan Province in just 19 working days, erected at an incredible rate of three floors a day. Called "Mini Sky City," the construction is an assembly of 2,736 glass-and-steel modules fabricated off-site over the course of roughly five months. Though the tower may have come quickly, the offerings within don't fall short: the new high-rise boasts 19 atriums, office space for 4,000 people, 800 apartments, and is reportedly earthquake-resistant.
Watch the incredible video here
January 16, 2015

Could These Portable Temporary Homes Help Solve NYC’s Affordable Housing Crisis?

As the De Blasio administration struggles to find ways to remedy the city's affordable housing crisis, here comes a solution from overseas that could help solve their woes while also putting the city's nearly 15,000 revitalization-ready vacant lots to use. Dubbed Heijmans ONE, these Dutch-made prefab homes are easily portable, easily deployable, and are designed specifically to provide cheap housing for those who need it.
More details on the beautiful design here

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