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September 10, 2012
Legoland comes to Brooklyn
Decision looms on plans for world's tallest prebuilt towers in downtown Brooklyn.
Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino
Here's another article for which we covered Atlantic Yards Report's coverage this weekend.
Architect Christopher Sharples knows what most people think of when they hear the term "modular construction."
"A bunch of shoeboxes sitting on top of one another," said the SHoP Architects principal.
Soon he hopes to shatter that negative stereotype in record-setting fashion. Mr. Sharples is part of a core group of 18 people brought together by Forest City Ratner to design a 32-story residential tower made up of 930 prebuilt modules containing portions of finished apartments—everything from bathrooms to kitchens—bolted to a steel frame.
It will not only be the world's tallest modular structure but likely the least uniform one as well, boasting four different façades. It will also take a prominent position next to the Barclays Center, in the developer's Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn. There it may ultimately be joined by 15 other modular apartment buildings, at least one soaring as high as 50 stories.
...For starters, 60% of the construction would be done indoors in a factory where carpenters, plumbers, painters and electricians would build the modules. Meanwhile at Atlantic Yards, crews would erect the tower's steel frame. The dual tracking of construction alone could shave as much as six months off the process, saving millions of dollars.
NoLandGrab: Six months? That means Atlantic Yards might get built in 29 years, six months, rather than 30 years.
Posted by eric at September 10, 2012 11:16 AM