Factory Production

A visit to a very large factory today. No photography allowed inside.

It’s been in full operation for 10 days. Houses like this are put together on a production line, fully fitted out with fitted kitchens, boilers, bathrooms etc. Each floor (or “cassette” - there are two in the photo, a ground floor and a first floor with shallow pitched roof) is transported onto site. The ground floor is placed on the foundations and plugged into the service connections, then the floor above is lifted on and bolted to it.

It’s not cheaper in construction terms than doing it all on site, but it’s a lot faster, and there is much better quality control. The process is like car production. A particular model can be ordered, and then variations made. The limiting factor is transportation constraints - it cannot be such an abnormal load that it requires a police escort.

All very impressive. The end result doesn’t look modular at all. For “traditional” volume housebuilding I can see this is going to be the way to go. Although size may be an issue for some - rooms were small. But that’s an issue with a lot of new housing, and if we’re trying to reduce land take and increasing densities, space becomes an issue.