A premier NYC construction manager recognizes the use of modular construction as an innovative construction technique.  Capsys is pleased that Plaza Construction has featured the use of modular construction in a presentation of the Building 92 project.

 Building 92 – YouTube Video

Cornell out to push construction frontiers

3:46 pm, May 24, 2012

BY SARAH TREFETHEN

Cornell hopes to deliver four new campus buildings by 2017, if funding and costs work out as hoped.

When the Bloomberg administration set out to bring a new applied sciences campus to the five boroughs, the goal was to introduce a source of innovation that would help New York City’s economy remain competitive in the 21st century.

Now, as Cornell University moves forward with plans to construct a $2 billion engineering campus on Roosevelt Island, innovation remains the project’s watchword.

That trailblazing philosophy will extend to awarding construction and design contracts for the planned two million s/f on new space, according to Kyu Whang, the university’s vice president for facilities service.

Modular, pre-fabricated construction is “absolutely” an option for the project, Whang told attendees of NAIOP’s “Building the Future of New York City” forum earlier this month.

“If it’s an innovative way to do construction, then certainly we’ll consider it on our campus,” he said, responding to a direct question about the controversial practice of staging some construction work for a project in an off-site factory.

Modular building is still uncommon in New York, but Forest City Ratner plans to start construction on the world’s tallest pre-fabricated steel building in Brooklyn this year.

Whang’s comment was in keeping with one of the themes that emerged during the morning-long event, held overlooking the World Trade Center construction site: the idea that New York City builders are out of date.

Seth Pinsky, chairman of the Economic Development Corporation, said that the city’s building methodologies were “decades behind” other cities in the world.

Even by national standards, New York construction may be too slow and costly to attract some industries, said Pat Di Filippo, executive vice-president of Turner Construction.

Di Filippo described the pressures of time and efficiency faced by a major technology company like Apple or IBM (a Turner client) when launching a new product.

“Construction, facilities — those are just a drag on the bottom line,” he said.

Fast, efficient building is one of the things Cornell will be looking to accomplish on Roosevelt Island.

The Ithaca-based ivy school is contractually obligated to deliver two buildings by 2017, but it has a more ambitious goal. If funding and costs work out as hoped, Whang said, Cornell hopes to complete four buildings by that deadline.

Cornell is looking for a developer to enter into a partnership to construct its second Roosevelt Island building, a research and development facility. That developer will need to be comfortable with Building Information Management (BIM) software, Whang said.

Construction professionals are not the only people Cornell wants to push into new frontiers. Architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis is designing the first piece of the campus, a 150,000 s/f, net-zero energy academic building.

Mayne, who was behind the Cooper Union academic building at 41 Cooper Square, is expected to deliver the first design drafts in November 2012.

The university expects the design to break from the academic tradition of long corridors of offices and classrooms, and instead create a building of open, collaborative space with very few private offices, Whang said.

While resistance from tenured faculty can prevent universities from experimenting with floor plans, Whang said, there is an advantage to launching a completely new academic program on a completely new campus.

“We’re building the building before we have the faculty,” he said.

‘Real Estate Weekly’; “Cornell out to push construction frontiers”; Sarah Trefethen; May 24, 2012;

http://www.rew-online.com/2012/05/24/7243/;

Cars are built in a controlled environment and are customized to meet the end-user’s needs and requirements.  At Capsys, with our Greenflex residence hall system we apply the same concepts!

We start with the basics; what are the student housing requirements, what does the school need and when do they need it?

 We go to the next step; what is the culture and what are the features we need to incorporate into the Greenflex system?

 We finalize a plan; let’s combine the requirements, the schedule, the culture, the features and of course the budget. 

 A plan is born;  All this done and the Greenflex design becomes unique but budget and schedule conscience!

 We get it done!  That’s the end result, the Greenflex system from Capsys gets the job done!  No need to worry about where the students are going and what the cost is, let’s do it together with this innovative Greenflex system!  It’s built to your needs, based upon your budget and on your schedule!

Sustainable and environmentally friendly materials and methods are permeating the industry rapidly.  Capsys has fully embraced these concepts from our beginning; but with any new technology and ideas endurance is determined by performance.  At Capsys we strive to embrace the methods that will stand the test of time, always cautious of what is a fad and what is tried-and-true.  Some examples of our dedication:

Right-size the equipment – The Capsys engineering team always verifies that we are installing the appropriate mechanical equipment.  Oversizing equipment leads to not only additional costs upfront but also short-cycling and reduced efficiency.  Getting the correct size equipment means higher efficiency and lower overall costs and consumption, its proven and we embrace it!

Seal the gaps – Such a tremendous source of heating and cooling costs come from air infiltration, if a building is properly sealed and the design accounts for occupant health then we have a healthy building, person and energy budget.  We make sure to account for not only the cost of conditioning but also the health and comfort of the people living inside the building.

Indoor air quality – The environment inside the building is paramount to the health and productivity of the occupants, we don’t take all the buzzwords and just follow them, we actually make sure the job is done right.

Education – Talking about sustainable design doesn’t do anything, acting on it does!  Capsys ensures that each of our team, from project management to installing professionals understands WHY we are doing something, when people understand the reason for a measure they take extra care in providing and ensuring its effectiveness.  Always keep everyone from the designers to the end-users informed, it does make a difference!

It’s a great day here at Capsys and even better if you need to use a rest room in Greenpoint.

We just delivered and set our 600 sf prefabricated comfort station to the Greenpoint Playground in Brooklyn, NY.

Check out some pictures from today’s setting!

Let us know what YOU think.  Does the city need more public restrooms?

It’s always a treat for us to read about how another country has adopted modular construction to tackle their own unique construction requirements. The following article is from the Australian web site “Construction Source” and was authored by John Rouvalis who is an Associate Director with the international Engineering company the Meinhardt Group. In it, John urges his peers to discover and to fully appreciate all of the attributes that modular construction can bring to a project.

http://designbuildsource.com.au/exploiting-modular-construction

 The third phase of a multi-phase affordable housing project in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate Construction Management Program and the Real Estate Synergy Club will be hosting an event entitled “OFF-SITE CONSTRUCTION & MODULAR HIGH-RISE” to be held at The Shorin Performance Center @ The Kimmel Center on the NYU campus at 600 Washington Square South, NY, NY on Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 7:30 AM.

The event will include breakfast followed by a panel discussion featuring prominent members of the New York development and construction oversight authorities, representatives of the Modular Building Institute, members of the Sustainable construction consultancy community as well as members of the Capsys management team.

As Sasha Durcan, one of the event’s organizers puts it:  “The global construction and development industries have embraced “one of the oldest new ideas” with Off-site & Modular High-Rise Construction.  Advances in parametric modeling and digital fabrication have significantly advanced off-site building capabilities.    Modular design can now substantially reduce schedules; create efficient labor, material and cost savings; improve quality control and worker safety; as well as easily contributing to sustainability goals.”

So, please join the Capsys, along with the NYU Schack Institute CMAA Chapter, the Real Estate Synergy Club, members of NYU Stern, NYU Law and NYU Wagner schools, as well as industry stakeholders, to discuss current challenges and solutions in the Off-Site & Modular Industry. 

This event is free to the public.

For more information as the event evolves, please check in often at the event BlogSpot linked below.  We look forward to seeing you there.

http://nyumodular.blogspot.com/

The answer is yes according to Alistair Gibb, Professor of Construction Engineering Management at  Loughborough University.   Loughborough University is located in Leicestershire, England.   It is a leading research school consistently ranked among the top 15 in the UK.

 Professor Gibb supplied the following article to the website Buildoffsite, which is one of our favorite web spots.  Buildoffsite is the trade organization representing the Offsite Construction Industry throughout the UK.

 We at Capsys are often asked about the Sustainable Construction aspects of our fabrication system.  I think the following article by Professor Gibb very clearly and succinctly points out the most important and relevant  aspects of the discussion and comes down clearly on the site that volumetric modular construction will have numerous positive impacts on any typical construction program.

 Please read what professor Gibb has to say in the following:

Is offsite sustainable?

 Offsite manufacture, sometimes called prefabrication, modular or industrialised building, is an approach to constructing the built environment that has been at the leading edge of innovation for a number of years. Put simply, offsite is manufacturing and assembling whole buildings or substantial parts of buildings prior to installation into their final location. The work almost always takes place in a factory environment. The offsite spectrum includes non-volumetric units such as panels and building services modules; volumetric units such as toilet or kitchen ‘pods’; and whole building solutions, often known as ‘modular buildings’. Offsite is a strategy that affects the whole project rather than just the application of ad-hoc products or technologies. Government-prompted reports have extolled its virtues, manufacturers have publicised its benefits, developers have worried about its cost and architects have debated its worth. Notwithstanding, offsite is here to stay as a valuable part of the built environment.

 But, is offsite sustainable? The vision of many of the early exponents fits the sustainable culture very well: Buckminster Fuller’s goal in the middle of the last century was to ‘touch the earth lightly’ and his Dymaxion Dwelling Machine – or Wichita House1 was his realization of this ambition. However, like many such experiments, the Wichita house was ultimately destined to become a museum exhibit. Kieran Timberlake’s Loblolly House2 sees the minimum impact of the construction process through offsite as part of its sustainable credentials, along with the widespread use of recycled and local materials, such as locally quarried stones and sustainably harvested wood windows.

 1 www.designmuseum.org/design/r-buckminster-fuller

2 www.treehugger.com

3 WAS 003.003 – Offsite Construction Case Studies

Here are some photos of Bldg 92 proudly built by Capsys.