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Modular Housing in UK to be used for massive Social Housing project

Tom O'Hara September 10, 2014 Industry News Comments Off on Modular Housing in UK to be used for massive Social Housing project

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The UK has been employing off-site construction to provide speedy, high-quality social housing for many years. The percentage of all residential construction in UK utilizing off-site construction approaches 25%. The UK has been employing off-site construction to provide speedy, high-quality social housing for many years. The percentage of all residential construction in UK utilizing off-site construction approaches 25%. In some areas such as in Scotland, as much as 45% of all single family home construction utilizes off-site construction. The following is copied from Inside Housing.Co.UK a website which follows the “News, views and jobs in Social Housing” throughout the UK. This is an example of a creative and cooperative approach to achieving new housing. We should be so far-sighted in the US! InThe UK has been employing off-site construction to provide speedy, high-quality social housing for many years. The percentage of all residential construction in UK utilizing off-site construction approaches 25%. In some areas such as in Scotland, as much as 45% of all single family home construction utilizes off-site construction.
The following is copied from Inside Housing.Co.UK a website which follows the “News, views and jobs in Social Housing” throughout the UK. This is an example of a creative and cooperative approach to achieving new housing. We should be so far-sighted in the US!
some areas such as in Scotland, as much as 45% of all single family home construction utilizes off-site construction.
The following is copied from Inside Housing.Co.UK a website which follows the “News, views and jobs in Social Housing” throughout the UK. This is an example of a creative and cooperative approach to achieving new housing. We should be so far-sighted in the US!

 

Inside Housing.Co.UK

Landlords plan order of 500 off-site homes

5 September 2014 | By Pete Apps

An informal consortium of social landlords is planning to club together to order 500 off-site homes.

The landlords- which include Riverside, Manchester City Council and New Charter- are interested in delivering more homes through off-site production, but require a large order for the deal to make financial sense.

New Charter’s involvement also brings in JV North, a development consortium with 12 members which may all add orders to the bid.

The group plans to place an order of 500 homes by July with an as yet unknown factory based developer of housing.

The news follows north-west procurement consortium Procure Plus’s plan to build a factory to construct off-site homes which could be up and running by 2016.

Mark Patchitt, director of regeneration at Riverside, said: ‘A lot of [off-site] manufacture needs a big order for it to make sense. The companies that set up the factories need to know they have volume and continuity to make it a worthwhile venture.

‘So we’ve got together an informal off-site manufacturing club to see if we can get together an order of at least 500 homes.’

The government is actively seeking to increase off-site production among social landlords, with a fifth of the homes under the next round of the affordable homes programme likely to be built off site.

Brandon Lewis, the housing minister, said: ‘We are encouraging the use of innovative off-site construction in house building, through planning guidance and our house building programmes.’

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“Prefab Apartment Buildings on the rise” according to Marketplace.org

Tom O'Hara April 22, 2014 Industry News Comments Off on “Prefab Apartment Buildings on the rise” according to Marketplace.org

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Prefab apartment buildings on the rise

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​by Dan Bobkoff

Monday, April 21, 2014 – 16:13

Dan Bobkoff

The first floors of a modular apartment building are already in place behind the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Dan Bobkoff

The skeleton of a new apartment module comes together at Capsys’s factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Dan Bobkoff

A bathroom in an apartment at The Stack. All fixtures were installed in the factory, not at the site.

Dan Bobkoff

A kitchen in an apartment at The Stack. Even the appliances were installed in the factory.

Dan Bobkoff

A model living room at The Stack in the Inwood section of Manhattan.

Dan Bobkoff

The staggered block design of The Stack was designed to highlight its modular construction.

A new apartment building called The Stack is about to open in the Inwood section of Manhattan. By design, it looks like a collection of staggered Lego blocks. On the inside, it’s like any other modern rental building in New York. It has a sleek, simple design.

What’s different is that these apartments were not built here in Manhattan, but almost entirely somewhere else.

“The paint, the lighting, the kitchen cabinets, the appliances, the bathroom tile, fixtures, mirror, all of that is done in the factory,” says The Stack’s architect, Tom Gluck, with the firm GLUCK+.

Gluck has been an architect for years, but this is the first time his firm has built what’s called a modular building.

Each apartment comes out of a factory from a company, like Capsys in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It looks like an auto plant, complete with assembly line run on a track in the ground.

“Where we’re building pieces of building like you’d build a car in a factory. You get that repetition, that precision,” says Tom O’Hara, director of business development at Capsys.

On one end of the plant, a team is joining steel beams to make the skeleton of a new apartment. On the other end, a crew is putting the finishing touches on a unit. One guy is tiling the bathroom. You could cook in this kitchen. There’s even a thermostat on the wall already. The apartments are so close to finished that they look like you could move in immediately, if they weren’t sitting on a factory floor.

 

An apartment module nearing completion at Capsys. It will soon be trucked to the building site and hoisted into place. (Photo: Dan Bobkoff)

But soon, this entire apartment will be put on a flatbed, trucked to the Bronx, then hoisted on top of all the other modular apartments. When the building’s done, you won’t even know it was built this way.

There are many reasons proponents like O’Hara think modular construction is better: it’s built inside, away from weather and dirt. It’s faster because you can build the foundation and the building at the same time. There’s much less wasted material. And yet, while it’s popular in Europe, modular construction in the U.S. remains a rounding error, accounting for just a tiny percentage of new home and multifamily construction.

“I think a lot of people really have misconceptions about the modular business,” O’Hara says.  “I think they feel somehow that there’s substandard construction in the factory.”

He says most people think modular means mobile homes or boring, blocky buildings. To him, it just means it’s built better.

“Why would I want my toaster built by a guy sitting on a bench with a ten snip banging things together. I want it out of a factory! Why shouldn’t the building come out of a factory?” O’Hara says.

Modular has been seen as the future before, and yet never caught on beyond certain sectors like college dorms and hotels.

But nearly everyone I talked to thinks this is the moment that changes.

“A lot of it truthfully has to do with this building that we’re standing in front of,” says Jim Garrison, an architect and professor at the Pratt Institute. We’re behind the new Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, looking at what’ll soon be the tallest modular building: 32 stories of apartments.

It’s funded by a big name developer. Garrison says it’s the biggest example that modular is possible, practical, and not necessarily cookie cutter.

“We now have opportunities to build very interesting buildings using these systems. And, people are listening to the benefits that come with it,” Garrison says.

That’s not to say modular doesn’t have downsides. Because it’s made of boxes, you end up with walls against walls, taking up valuable square footage in the building. Designers have to decide everything on the front end. But more developers are attracted to modular’s faster, and sometimes cheaper construction. And, with new projects in the works, maybe this time is different.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/prefab-apartment-buildings-rise
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MyMicro NY, our modular, micro-apartment tower coming to Manhattan later this year

Tom O'Hara April 10, 2014 Happenings, Industry News Comments Off on MyMicro NY, our modular, micro-apartment tower coming to Manhattan later this year

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M&T Bank Finances Manhattan’s First Micro-Unit Development

BY DAMIAN GHIGLIOTTY 4/02 12:54PM

It was a tight deal for an even tighter development. M&T Bank recently closed a $10.3 million construction loan for the creation of Manhattan’s first micro-unit rental property to be built in Kips Bay. The loan went to Brooklyn-based Monadnock Construction, which is leading the project’s development team, Mortgage Observer has first learned.

The nine-story “My Micro NY” project, located on the northeast corner of East 27th Street and Mt. Carmel Place, will consist of 55 prefabricated apartments averaging about 300 square feet with 40 percent of the units being offered at below market rates. The mini apartments will contain nearly 10-foot ceilings and seven-foot-wide balconies in addition to 16-foot-long overhead loft spaces and full closets.

My Micro NY RenderingMy Micro NY Rendering

“Modular construction is cost efficient and we believe these micro-units will fill a need in the Manhattan market,” said M&T Regional President Peter D’Arcy. “As one of New York City’s more experienced commercial real estate lenders, we’ve thoroughly reviewed the business case for this project and are very comfortable providing the financial support.” M&T declined to discuss the term and rate of the construction loan, which closed in March.

Monadnock and its partners, the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation and New York-based architecture firm nARCHITECTS, won a competition to build the city’s first micro-units in early 2013. Installation of the 55 units, prefabricated by Capsys Corporation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, began earlier this year. The micro-units, being installed on the site of an old surface parking lot near Bellevue Park South, are expected to be available for rent in 2015. The ground floor of the completed property will contain 678 square feet of retail space.

Additional financing for the $16.6 million project will come through equity provided by the project’s developers and a secondary loan from the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

“It’s exciting to pioneer this new housing type in association with the City and our partners, including M&T,” said Nicholas Lembo, Monadnock’s president. “It’s an ideal application for modular construction, and we’re proud to use this innovative approach to offer another affordable option to New Yorkers looking for housing that fits their lifestyles.”

 

M&T Bank Finances Manhattan’s First Micro-Unit Development

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Modular Construction for On-Campus Student Housing

Tom O'Hara July 25, 2013 Industry News Comments Off on Modular Construction for On-Campus Student Housing

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Our friends over at France Publications, Inc. publish a weekly newsletter as well as their outstanding monthly periodical “Student Housing Business”.  We recommend both highly to all interested in the world of Student Accommodations and the business of both On-Campus and Privatized Student Housing.

The following article was just published in the July 24th edition of the newsletter and we thought it laid out well all of the many good reasons for using modular construction for Campus Housing projects.

Thanks to the author, Jim Snyder.  Good Job!

 

An Argument In Favor Of On-Campus Modular BuildingsJim Snyder
Director of Operations for Warrior Group Construction.

Permanent modular construction can be faster to assemble and easier on the environment than some site-built facilities.

Jim Snyder

 

Jim Snyder Today, increasing student populations and subsequent demands for housing often collide with the reality of limited funds at colleges and universities. As a result, higher education administrators have exacting expectations for new facilities on campus. That means that while it is critical that new dormitories are completed on time and within budget, it is equally important that facilities perform well for many years into the future. It doesn’t hurt if the project can be built in a sustainable manner and the building can be operated with the highest level of efficiency. Permanent modular construction, or PMC, is a construction solution that meets these demands and more.PMC takes most of the construction process off the building site and puts it into a controlled factory environment. The modular building components are fabricated in the factory and then shipped to the construction site where they are assembled to deliver a high-quality, sustainable building on an accelerated construction schedule. A typical building module includes multiple rooms, and most of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP), fixtures and interior finishes (including carpet, millwork, cabinetry, tile, trim and paint) are completed at the manufacturing site. PMC uses the same building materials as site-build construction, including light gauge steel framing, structural steel framing and wood framing as well as the same interior finish materials. The result is a final product that rivals site-built construction in durability, appearance and life span and is indistinguishable from a traditionally built structure. PMC produces buildings, including multi-story structures, with a level of quality, constructability and predictability that far exceeds typical conventional site-build capabilities.An important benefit of PMC is that it shortens the construction schedule, making it possible for students to occupy PMC dorms in less time and for colleges to earn a return on their investment sooner. PMC is faster than site-built construction because the modular portions of the facility are built in the factory concurrently with the site and foundation work, reducing the construction time by at least a third. Factory-based construction also provides for enhanced quality control over the construction process and more efficient management of labor and materials. PMC increases predictability as well, removing many risks – such as weather delays, material theft or damage, and accidents – from the construction schedule.There are many sustainable and green benefits to PMC because it relies on factory-based, lean manufacturing and construction methods. PMC allows the manufacturer to engineer a precise construction process so that nearly 100 percent of the construction waste is eliminated or recycled. Moving the majority of the construction into a manufacturing plant minimizes the amount of materials, workers and vehicles required at the job-site. As a result, PMC projects generate less air pollution at the construction site and require a far smaller lay-down area so there is less disruption to the natural environment. With less material storage and movement on-site, and very little construction waste, PMC job-sites are much cleaner than traditional job-sites. The reduced congestion also ensures the construction site and adjacent areas are safer for students and university staff. 

There are long-term sustainable advantages to PMC as well. Testing has shown that PMC-built facilities out-perform traditionally constructed buildings on air barrier tests, which means that a PMC dormitory is more energy efficient. PMC creates tighter buildings because workers have access to all sides of each building module during construction, allowing them to surround the module with insulation and to seal around receptacles in walls, a common place for air leaks. In addition, all the pieces of the modules fit snuggly together by design, eliminating leaks between floor and wall joints. The result is a tight, energy efficient structure, resulting in lower utility costs over the lifetime of the structure.

 

PMC is an excellent choice for a college and university campus expansion. Because fewer materials and construction personnel are needed on site and the construction footprint is smaller, it is ideal for a tight building site adjacent to existing structures on a crowded university campus. The faster construction timeline also means that the unavoidable disruptions and inconveniences of major construction are over sooner, and the work can often be completed over the summer break when the campus population is smaller. Finally, PMC creates a very strong, durable structure that can withstand the hard use a college dormitory receives and provide decades of service to a college community.

 

— Jim Snyder is director of operations for Warrior Group (www.warriorconstruction.com), a commercial construction contractor and an advocate of using PMC to deliver buildings on an accelerated construction schedule. Contact Jim at 972-228-9955 or at jsnyder@warriorconstruction.com
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Capsys Builds an Apartment Building in One Day!

Tom O'Hara May 06, 2013 Industry News Comments Off on Capsys Builds an Apartment Building in One Day!

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Setting of 315 Jerome Street Building – Time Lapse Video

On Thursday, May 2nd, we erected a nine-unit apartment building on Jerome St. in Brooklyn.  We showed you still photos a few weeks ago of the first of the two buildings going up on Linwood St.   Together, these two buildings make up the Cypress Gardens project we fabricated for the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation from a design by Magnusson Architecture and Planning.

For this building, we had such a pretty day that we had our good friend and professional photographer, James Shanks set up his time lapse camera so we thought we’d share James good work with you.

The nine modules were each 20’ x 47’ containing 940 sq. feet of area encompassing an complete 2-bedroom apartment.  The erection of the entire building was accomplished in one, 9 hour day.

This is the beauty of modular construction.  Not only do you get the precision of factory fabrication where the building construction takes place under roof in controlled conditions, but you save your neighborhood from months of disruption, dust, and noise by reducing the construction schedule to just one day!

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Greenpoint Comfort Station in Brooklyn is Now Open to the Public.

Capsys Corp. January 02, 2013 Capsys Building News Comments Off on Greenpoint Comfort Station in Brooklyn is Now Open to the Public.

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 Check out the latest photos taken on January 2, 2013.

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Daily News about Nehemiah Spring Creek

Bill McShane July 30, 2012 Happenings Comments Off on Daily News about Nehemiah Spring Creek

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Spring Creek Nehemiah is an affordable housing success story in East New York 

 

The development off Flatlands Ave. is home is home to 233 first-time homeowners who won the right to live there via lottery.

 

By / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, July 27, 2012, 11:43 AM

 
The Spring Creek Nehemiah development in East New York has provided affordable houses and apartments to the many residents of the community.

Aaron Showalter/for New York Daily News

Spring Creek Nehemiah is East New York is one of the city’s great housing success stories. Already, 233 first-time owners have moved into these well-designed townhomes.

 

Linda Boyce says it happens all the time. People turn off Flatlands Ave. in East New York, Brooklyn, and slowly cruise Linwood, Vandalia, and Egan Sts. They look around, admiring multi-colored boxy houses with big backyards, private driveways, and patches of front gardens.

“Someone always asks ‘How can I live here?’ ” says Boyce, a member of the first Homeowner Association at Nehemiah Spring Creek, one of the city’s largest affordable homeowning developments and a national model for affordable housing programs. “That makes us proud. We work hard to keep this neighborhood clean and safe. Sometimes I forget I’m in Brooklyn.”

In what is the city’s newest neighborhood, Spring Creek Nehemiah (as residents call it) is home to 233 first-time homeowners who won the right to live at Nehemiah in a lottery sponsored by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, a major partner in the project. They applied to the lottery more than five years ago, some as many as 17 years back. Soon, 50 new owners will move in. Five parks, a supermarket and EMS station will be finished upon plan completion.

NEHEMIAH27BPW_2_WEB

Aaron Showalter for New York Daily News

From left, proud Nehemiah owners Milagros Gerez, Walja Moody, Linda Boyce, organizer Grand Lindsay, Roxanne Thomas, Elizabeth Daniel, and Dawn Brown.

Built in partnership with East Brooklyn Congregations and designed by architect Alexander Gorlin, Nehemiah is composed of prefabricated one-, two- and three-family homes assembled at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Homeowners put down as little as $8,000 to purchase their houses, which ranged in price from $158,000 to $488,000.

PHOTOS: An insider’s guide to New Lots Ave., Brooklyn

When completed by 2016, over 1,525 new homes and apartments will be built on these streets tucked in behind Related Companies Gateway Plaza Mall, Belt Parkway, and two state parks opening by 2014. In September, three new schools will open on a $75 million campus constructed by the Department of Education.

Boyce and her fellow homeowners are part of phase one. They work hard daily to ensure their streets, homes and neighborhood stay safe and clean.

NEHEMIAH27BPW_1_WEB

Aaron Showalter for New York Daily News

Linda Boyce shows off her kitchen in a Spring Creek Nehemiah home.

As you enter the area dominated by the Nehemiah prefab houses, it has the feel of newness. It’s cleaner than a hospital. On a quiet and hot Saturday, it feels like a movie set. But life lives inside these homes. Some people have pools, others gardens and outdoor patios with Southern smokers. People on the streets say hello to one another. They stop to talk about meetings, fairs, the new school and construction phases

Grant Lindsay, an organizer for East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC), knows a tight-knit neighborhood has more power combating local problems.

“Our job just doesn’t stop when people move in,” says Lindsay, who has helped EBC members empower themsleves in Brownsville, East New York and Bushwick. “That’s when it starts. We help work together to achieve their needs. Often big government and landlords take advantage of people. We don’t want that to happen. At Nehemiah, we want to build a strong community. This is a place that looks out after each other and is proactive in seeking change. A home is just a home. A neighborhood takes relationships.”

NEHEMIAH27BPW_5_WEB

Aaron Showalter for New York Daily News

A row of three-family houses on the edge of the development. Construction on phase-two homes has already began. Fifty new homeowners will move in shortly.

Block by block, Lindsay works with homeowners to set up monthly meetings. Already they have rallied to make crossing Flatlands Ave. safer for seniors and worked to establish a relationship with the Academy for Young Writers, the high school moving from Williamsburg to East New York this fall.

“We make things happen ourselves,” says Roxanne Thomas, owner of a three-family house. “I live across from an empty lot where they are going to build. People used to ride dirt bikes there. It was noisy. I worked with police to ask them to leave. The block is quiet again.”

NEHEMIAH27BPW_10_WEB
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(At left, two-familyhomes have bay windows and modern stoops; Photo: Aaron Showalter for New York Daily News)

Dawn Brown lives across the street from a football field that serves as a practice and game-day facility for Thomas Jefferson High School. The single mom jokes about her master bedroom being the “mistress bedroom.” Taking pride inside and outside the home, Brown cuts the grass along the practice field fence herself.

“It just looks better,” she says. “We want this to be an inspiration for the entire area. You won’t see spray paint here. You don’t hear loud music. People respect each other here.”

More than respect, homeownership in Spring Creek Nehemiah reaches spiritual heights.

Homeowner Elizabeth Daniel got burned in a Canarsie foreclosure scandal, losing a down payment. Her grandmother instilled in her the goal of homeownership. She started saving again, and received word in 2010 that she had won the right to own a home in Nehemiah. Daniel lives in a two-family with her husband. She loves the bay window and placement on her home on Vandalia St.

“Every day I stop for a moment to thank God for being here,” says Daniel, who works in higher education. “I’m going to make the most of it. We’re going to make sure this place is the best it can be.” Walja Moody came to New York from Alabama. She forgot she applied for a Nehemiah home until 14 years later when the application arrived.

“I had just been divorced,” she says. “I was head of the household and thinking, ‘How am I going to do this?’ ” she says. “It’s very fulfilling to be part of a community that is growing and evolving. We are all in this together here. We are not rich people. These homes and this neighborhood are our lives.”

A philosophical architect with a conscious, Alexander Gorlin was aware of the importance architecture would have in the community. He and his firm have been working on the project for 12 years. Gorlin’s take on the updated brownstone for middle-class New Yorkers was honored in an exhibition on prefab houses at the Museum of Modern Art. It feels “heartening,” he says, to walk Nehemiah today.

“You feel the power of architecture at work creating a beautiful place for people to live,” says Gorlin. “There is such attention to detail, like that in a wealthy person’s home, that in ways it confirms that the people who live here are important. All the homes are not alike. They allow for individuality in a communal setting. I think that helps it work.”

Boyce, who has a corner one-family across from the new school, redesigned her kitchen with granite countertops and custom-made cabinetry. She redid her floors a darker wood.

“I had a niece come to visit, and from the outside she said it looked so small,” says Boyce. “When she came in, she couldn’t believe how big it is. When the school opens, it will be wonderful to hear children laughing and playing. We’re working to see how we can help them.”

Set to open in September, the educational structure will house three schools: the Academy for Young Writers, where 60% to 80% of the students live in East New York and Brownsville; the Spring Creek Community School, which starts at sixth grade, and P53K for special-needs students. The high school’s principal, Courtney Winkfield, sees a link between the neighborhood and the school.

“We chose to be in this neighborhood,” says Winkfield, whose school was formerly housed in a Williamsburg walkup with electrical wiring so old multiple computers couldn’t power up. “Not only is it where our students live, it’s a place with strong spirit. We’re discussing mentorship programs to stay connected to our neighbors. The people at Nehemiah are pioneering a new area.”

For EBC, the drive for quality housing and empowered community is constant.

“The homes we build are named after the Old Testament figure Nehemiah, who helped rebuild Jerusalem after it had been destroyed,” says Lindsay. “With each home, we try to embody that same spirit of hope in the face of despair. It’s ironic. This is one of the signature achievements of the Bloomberg third term, but the mayor hasn’t been here. We hope he comes to see this.”

YOU SHOULD KNOW

What: Nehemiah Spring Creek, an affordable housing success story in East New York. Phase three homes start at $190,000 with about $10K down.

Where: Near Gateway Plaza Mall off Flatlands Ave. Take the 3 train to New Lots Ave. and the B6 to Nehemiah Spring Creek near Linwood St.

How: Go to nyc.gov/hpd for lottery info. For more on East Brooklyn Congregations, go to ebc-iaf.org.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/spring-creek-nehemiah-affordable-housing-success-story-east-new-york-article-1.1123089?pgno=2#ixzz226l0rWYB

 

See also:

http://www.capsyscorp.com/nextlevelbuilding/?p=814

 

 

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Housing Built in Record Time

Tom O'Hara July 12, 2012 Capsys Building News Comments Off on Housing Built in Record Time

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Modular construction delivers model for New York Housing in record time

Building Design + Construction Magazine

 

A 65-unit supportive housing facility in Brooklyn, N.Y., was completed in record time using modular construction with six stories set in just 12 days.

 
330 MacDougal Street, Brooklyn, NY. 85 modules forming 65 studio apartments and

330 MacDougal Street, Brooklyn, NY. 85 modules forming 65 studio apartments and the supporting public areas, stair towers and elevator shaft of five residential levels above a site-built first level. Client: Concern for Independent Living, Medford, NY, Architect: DeLaCour & Ferrara Architects, Brooklyn, NY.

 

 

 

Concern for Independent Living, a New York-based non-profit group providing supportive housing was in need of a new housing facility in Brooklyn, N.Y., for low-income individuals recovering from mental illness. Using modular construction allowed the project to be completed in record time, quickly transforming the property into a residence with 65 studio apartments.

The development of this program included the demolition of the existing building and the new construction of the MacDougal Street Apartments. The new building is the first Single-Site Supportive Housing Program in New York State to utilize modular building techniques and provides a model for modular construction in supportive housing.

The MacDougal Street Apartment complex is located on the site of a former residential program for adolescents, which closed in 2005. The buildings on the property remained vacant and boarded up, becoming a neighborhood eyesore until the property was purchased by Concern for Independent Living in 2008. The vacant structures were demolished to make room for the newly constructed six-story building.

Eighty-four modules were constructed off-site at Capsys Corp.’s manufacturing plant at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The factory-controlled process moved the construction off site to bring the order and control of an assembly line, minimizing construction waste and site disturbances. Starting with the fabrication of the structural elements, components were added to the modules as they moved through the factory. Windows, doors, MEP systems and fixtures, and trims were all installed along the line. The modules were then wrapped in protective materials and moved to temporary storage awaiting their trip to the building site to become part of the building project.

Project Summary

Number of modules: 84
Number of stories: 6
Installation time: 12 days
Square footage: 29,850

While the site was being prepared and the foundations constructed, Capsys was simultaneously fabricating the modules. When the site was ready, so were the modules. A large hydraulic construction crane was staged at the site, modules were transported in a systematic order to the crane hook and modules were quickly stacked and welded creating a unitized structural whole assembly. The erection process happened so quickly that all six stories were installed in just 12 days.

The project was funded by NYS Office of Mental Health and designed by DeLaCour and Ferrara Architects. This apartment building provides safe, affordable housing and on-site supportive services, incorporating many of the latest advances in construction techniques and sustainable features such as Energy Recovery Ventilation, Photovoltaic technology for power generation and substantial reductions in energy use.

Residents enjoy their own studio apartment with private bathroom and kitchenette. The building includes a fitness center, computer room/library, laundry facilities, several lounges, and outdoor recreational areas.

When Concern for Independent Living purchased the site, they promised to improve the neighborhood by developing an attractive building that is an asset to the community; increasing employment opportunities; encouraging the stability, self-sufficiency and productivity of adults living with mental illness; and increasing affordable housing opportunities for disabled men and women. This project has succeeded in achieving all of these goals.

“We are proud to have companies like Capsys Corp. as members of the Modular Building Institute,” said Tom Hardiman, executive director.  “With their help, we are changing the way the world builds.”

To see the full article go to:

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Greenflex Residence Hall System

Bill McShane May 29, 2012 Latest Design Trends and Innovations Comments Off on Greenflex Residence Hall System

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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!

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The Mothership Has Landed

Capsys Corp. May 10, 2012 Capsys Building News Comments Off on The Mothership Has Landed

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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?

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