Ever wondered how China constructed a hospital in just 10 days during Covid-19 outbreak?
Modular construction.
In today’s rapidly growing world, time has become a valuable
asset in any industry. But, the construction industry, in contrast is a time
consuming industry and is somewhat lagging to match up the pace of other
industries. Also, space becomes a limitation for construction in many urban cities
as any construction activity involves the application of larger equipment and
manpower to complete its task, which seems to disturb others day to day life.
Larger construction in cities causes delay, obstruction of traffic, accidents, and pollution which affects general public’s life greatly. Despite these bad
effects, there is no alternative to construction and is a must for the growth and development of any country and its
economy.
So, as a solution to this, the construction practice
prevailing since ages is being revolutionized using a new concept called
Modular Construction. In modular construction, buildings are constructed off-site under a controlled plant using the same conventional engineering codes and practices
in the form of modules and are later assembled on site, just like we assemble
different furniture at our house and use it as a single unit. This technology
helps to construct buildings as stronger as those constructed in conventional
methods, but only in about half the time.
Huoshenshan Hospital, Wuhan, China.
Image courtesy: https://therealdeal.c/
Why modular construction?
- Faster and safer construction practice
- Greater flexibility in construction and materials can be reused
- Weather delays are eliminated as 60-90% of construction is done off-site
- Lesser material waste and hence lesser carbon emission
- Lower cost of construction
Though it might sound like a new technology, the origin of modular building dates back to the 1600s. One of the first reported modular homes
was of a colonial American fisherman, who while moving back from England, dissembled
his home and shipped it back to the US by boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Since
then, modular construction has been evolving over the past three centuries and
is changing and adapting with time. Here are some examples of modular
construction across the world in these recent years.
1.Habitat, 67 Montreal, Canada (1967)
4. The Greene Town Center, Beavercreek, Ohio
The Greene Town Center, Beavercreek
Image Courtesy: https://www.triumphmodular.com
The idea of modular construction is something that ages long back but is still not in practice in our country. So, as a civil engineering student, I feel it is something to be looked upon and brought into practice. This idea can be mobilized in different sectors such as housing, entertainment, health care, hospitality, office, etc. The recent example of china building a Covid hospital in 10 days shows how the proper utilization of civil engineering technology helps to cope up with disasters. So, Modular construction is certainly the future of building construction and is something we are going to see a lot in the coming future. Nepal being a developing country has a larger number of building projects in the coming future. Employing modular construction, Nepal can construct a larger number of buildings in a small time, which can be helpful to different industries such as business and agriculture. Also, this construction technique could be used as a disaster management tool to construct temporary housing for flood and landslide affected populations, whose number rises each year during monsoon. So, Nepal can achieve a lot using this technology and can pace up building construction time helping its economy to prosper.
0 Comments