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Charles Scawthorn's avatar

Thank you for your articles, very well done. Re this questions (why larger bldgs aren't much cheaper...), as you probably know, the rule of thumb (for most buildings) is that the bare structure (which is much of what you focus on) is only 20% of the cost of the finished building construction cost (ie, omitting land cost). The other 80% are interior finishes (finished floor, walls, fenestration...), MEP etc. These 80% scale almost linearly with floor area. On the other hand, I agree that the economies of scale not occurring is very puzzling - I'm still astounded to go by US sites and see stick-built construction still happening, even on 4 or 6 story apartments over concrete podiums. Its real piece-work. In northern Europe there are many more economies (eg, panelized construction - they tend to replace more labor with capital). Part of the reason is that, surprising to me, 2x4 wood framing is still the cheapest option in N. America for small-medium residential construction. Again, thanks for thoughtful pieces. (PS - would Munger live in that dorm? doubt it. the psych costs would appear terrible).

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David R.'s avatar

As Charles points out, most building costs are interior fit-out, and that's even more true for single-family homes where the structural system and design costs are a pittance. One of the greatest challenges for prefabrication methods is that they stall out at the structural level, maybe with some architectural finish. We don't do much prefabrication for either MEP or interior finish work. That's true of precast concrete and tilt-up systems, panelized wood structures, both cold-rolled and light-gauge steel assemblies, glazing modules...

What I'm not really sure of is whether we *can* do that economically; talking to the professionals, it seems no one is trying.

For example, is there an impediment (genuine or code-based) to creating a fully panelized, factory-assembled system for single-family home walls, where utilities "plug into" standardized connections in a wider building system? For single-family homes, such a system would seem to be within reach if I'm building several hundred similar family homes in 8 sub-divisions in a metropolitan area. It'd do even better at interior partitions in larger structures; before we close up a floor, load in 250 panels with mark numbers and precast-style erection tickets and then let the interior fit-out folks erect after that floor is weather-tight. Walls placed, utility connections made, structural links fixed, paint, trim, done.

I have no idea how to even begin analyzing this, but it seems very much untouched.

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