How do you construct a custom-built terraced house in three weeks? Swap traditional materials such as bricks and mortar for prefabricated wooden frames that can be slotted into place.
London- and Liverpool-based architects shedkm used the technique for a new terraced block of 43 "hoUSes" (above) in Manchester, teaming up with developer Urban Splash and timber-panel company Insulshell to prefabricate walls, ceilings and floors. "The construction method uses existing timber technologies, but combines them in a new way," says Ian Killick, director of shedkm.
The company made each storey as a rigid six-sided box, meaning each unit was self-supporting. The boxes were transported to the site in New Islington, Manchester, for the March 2016 opening. Each box for the dwellings, which cost from £100,000 to build, took eight weeks to fabricate in Insulshell's factory.
Now, shedkm is constructing 800 houses in Tyne and Wear, finishing in September - and Insulshell has introduced a production-line system which will cut its current build time of eight weeks to three weeks. "Transportation is key to building in this way," says Killick. "At present there is a limited number of the right sort of vehicles, but that should change as demand increases. The sight of housing modules moving around our motorway network will become commonplace."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
