Mateo Zimmerman, investment manager at CEMEX Ventures, explores how modular design can boost quality and sustainable construction in the current market
The Big Smoke, otherwise known as London, is at present home to almost nine million people. The city inherited its colorful nickname back in the 1950s when thick residues of burnt coal—practically the only energy source used at the time—clouded citizens’ views, tampered with their breathing, and caused them to suffer skin allergies. Fast forward 100 years and global metropolises are predicted to look visibly different than in past eras of exponential growth and industrialization. By 2050, an additional 2.4 billion people worldwide are expected to be looking for a place to live—the equivalent of a new greater London population every three months for the next 35 years.
So how can we ensure clean, livable cities amidst such rapid population growth? According to the European Commission, buildings are responsible for 40% of the EU’s energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, which means the question is no longer how do we build more homes, but how do we build more sustainable homes and reuse and recycle materials to eliminate the high-carbon-producing elements of construction?
One solution that’s gaining popularity fast is modular construction. The modular construction market is projected to grow from $76 billion in 2021 to a colossal $115 billion in 2028. Modular or prefabricated construction isn’t an entirely new concept per se, but due to recent improvements and economic demand, it has gained unprecedented traction and visibility. Thanks to benefits such as reduced waste, speedy building, lower costs, sustainability, flexibility, and its alleviation of the skilled worker shortage, modular construction is gaining popularity among different players in the construction industry.
Today’s construction workers need to think beyond singular projects and look at them as a system of parts that extends beyond one lifetime. To do so, they need to explore new avenues for sustainable structural design. So, let’s take a look at how modular design promotes quality and sustainable construction.
How does modular construction work?
In an effort to keep up with rapid industrialization, population growth, and urbanization in the last century, reliable and durable construction methods have paved the way to the built world as we know it today. But these traditional construction methods have also polluted our airways, and water sources, and in some regards, disconnected us from the natural world. Today, the modular design attempts to connect us with it.
A modular building is one that is pre-fabricated off-site and then combined and assembled later at an intended building site. Modular buildings are called such because they tend to consist of repeated modules and often take half the time to build compared to conventional buildings.
Designers can standardize the dimensions of modules, permitting the future expansion of a building or the replacement of its parts. Modular construction makes use of the same materials, reflects the identical design intent, and adheres to the same building codes and standards as conventional buildings. In other words, there is no compromise when it comes to this method over a more traditional one.
From traditional cubic designs to arched architecture to Tetris-style apartments, increasing investment in modular construction shows limitless innovative potential.
Modular design eliminates waste
Modular construction shows significant benefits with respect to waste reduction when compared to conventional methods. Typically, a small 25,000-square-foot office building produces about 100,000 pounds of waste. With a modular design, engineers can reduce this amount to about 1,800 pounds (a 98% reduction!) for a project around the same size.
Let’s look at an example for reference. The J57 Mini Sky City modular building in Changsha, China accelerated its construction process using modules. Project leaders built 95% of the prefabricated steel structure in advance off-site, which reduced the concrete needed by 15,000 trucks and minimized the dust and air pollution during construction.
Designing building elements in a controlled environment also results in better energy efficiency. On one side, modular engineers can manage temperature, air pressure, and humidity to prevent weather-related failures and wasted materials that often occur on traditional construction sites. As surplus materials are not exposed to the elements or left unused, there is complete control of the production line, and the materials and energy used. On the other side, modular buildings are designed with high-performance materials and systems that interact better with each other as a whole, improving also the operational energy efficiency of buildings.
Similarly, modular buildings are more recyclable because of their modular structures that engineers can rework into future projects. This is significant when you take into consideration that demolition represents more than 90% of total debris in the construction process. Modular constructed buildings can also be relocated, eliminating the need for demolition altogether.
Existing buildings with modular extensions
Architect and professor, Carl Elefante, says that “the greenest building is one that is already built,” and over 85% of existing buildings today will still be standing in 2050. Rather than trying to rebuild our cities from the ground up, we need to find new ways to improve our existing built environments—and modular design allows us to do just that.
Building in controlled spaces offers many advantages. It creates safer working environments that support more precise design methodologies, the use of new technologies, such as 3D-printing, and alternative and reconstructed materials. Hybrid modular design combines on-premise and off-site builds, and Yotel Amsterdam is a prime example of its success. With careful measurement, engineers were able to craft bathrooms off-site and place them into the existing structure afterwards. Quality was maintained and monitored off-site, and wastage and efficiency improved.
Modular designers can also implement modular features onto existing structures to capture renewable energy. Prefabricated 3D-printed glass panels, augmented with synthetically engineered microorganisms, act as solar-energy-producing skin for pre-existing buildings.
Ecoworks in Germany is a good example of how existing buildings can be renovated to drastically improve energy efficiency through prefabricated panels with built-in insulation. In Germany alone 30 million buildings are under immediate threat of EU-regulation (energy standard above F grade) and have to be renovated in the next 25 years.
Modular design lends itself to a circular economy
Rather than using, disposing of, and replacing constructions, modular design lends itself to a closed loop of renewable materials and energy—a circular economy.
For example, data centers are some of the largest energy-consuming business sites, housing computer servers, cooling systems, power supplies, and many other types of equipment. Such a structure takes years to build by hand, but with modular design, it can go up in weeks or even days. In fact, we’ve already seen modular data centers that can capture heat and reuse it for other purposes.
Moreover, modular cooling systems use indirect air-to-air systems that can provide significant savings to these energy-intensive centers. Indirect-air cooling methods use cool outside air to deliver the internal cooling required and remove internal hot air through a heat exchanger. This protects equipment from outdoor pollutant contamination, rapid fluctuations in temperature, and consequent humidity—while minimizing pollution from these sites to the outside environment as well.
In fact, an operable interactive village hut in China was built to interact with the weather, simultaneously closing and opening doors while triggering either a heating coil system or air conditioning system when the temperature drops below 16°C or rises above 29°C. The structure reserves energy by preserving natural air or heat from the sun during optimal temperatures and is an excellent example of modular construction’s contribution to the circular economy.
Construction industry must collaborate to promote the widespread adoption of modular
Ensuring optimal building conditions is a complex task when you consider new financing and working capital mechanisms, navigating regulation and the risk aversion of our industry, transportation mishaps, the development of new skills, and the integration of new technologies. What’s more, unpredictability and delayed projects make it difficult to convince developers and contractors to get on board with new building methodologies such as modular construction.
Rather than attempting to tackle everything independently, the construction industry must collaborate, moving away from inefficient processes and technologies and toward strategic partnerships between established companies and innovative startups. Modulous is just one modular housing startup that boasts a disruptive offsite construction system enabled by a digital platform and strategic relationships with industry partners to allow the high-speed delivery of quality, sustainable and affordable homes.
Today designers are more than master planners; they are gardeners. They must consider how their constructions will grow and interact with the environment and society over time. Industry leaders must combine their extensive knowledge with new innovations to promote the widespread adoption of sustainable new techniques like modular construction, and there’s no time like the present.
