Setting of 315 Jerome Street Building – Time Lapse Video

On Thursday, May 2^nd, 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!

We thought we’d share with you the following article from “Constructor” magazine, the magazine of The Associated General Contractors of America, the Construction Industry’s premier association for the nation’s largest and finest General Contractors.  It seems like everyone is coming around to the notion that we have held for years; that factory precision production of building  modules in combination with the services of a quality professional site contractor is the speediest, safest and best way to build buildings.  Call us to discuss your next project.

http://www.constructormagazine.com/index.php/2013/02/28/off-site-modular-construction-improves-quality-and-safety-of-projects/

Recently we were fortunate enough to be a participant in the Modular Building Institute’s annual meeting they call the World of Modular held in mid-March in Scottsdale, AZ.  It was good to meet with over 540 of our colleagues working in the Modular building industry from across the US, Canada, Mexico Europe and China.  We shared many ideas and took away several new bits of wisdom.

While there, our Director for Construction Services, Dave Parlo and I gave a presentation about our winning entry – MyMicro NY – in the NY HPD RFP contest to design and build micro apartments in lower Manhattan.  This project has generated a lot of industry buzz and we were proud to share with our colleagues a little about that project and about how well received Modular Construction is in New York these days.

At this conference, MBI unveiled several willing entries in their annual search for innovative ways to use modular construction to solve specific project parameters.  We thought you might like to see some of these winning entries.  The like below is to an article placed by our friends a Building Design + Construction at their website.  Enjoy.

http://www.bdcnetwork.com/5-award-winning-modular-buildings?utm_campaign=BD%2BC%20Weekly%204%2F3%2F13&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=BDC%20eNews%20Weekly&utm_content=2981250

This rendering is of our next project, Cypress Village. Magnusson Architecture and Planning designed this beautiful building. Cypress Village is being built by Capsys for the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation. This project will contain two buildings – one on Linwood Ave. and one at Jerome Street both in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. It will contain eighteen, two bedroom apartment flats. Each 940 SF flat is wholly contained within one 20 foot wide by 47 foot long module – the largest we have ever constructed  We’ll post erection photos soon so you can see these big guys flying into position. It should be quite a show.

H2M designs 49-unit prop. for The Richmond Group; Langan Eng., Monadnock, S. Winter assist

Yonkers, NY H2M architects + engineers designed a multi-story, multifamily property for The Richmond Group Development Corp. at 110 Ashburton Ave. The undeveloped site has now become a building with 49 residential units.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) completed its final review of the building confirming the building has LEED Gold status for its design, development and construction. The building actually has two new labels: LEED Gold Certified and Energy Star.

A traditional design would include insulation on the interior structure of the building only and not both the inside and outside. What makes this design green and sustainable is the design of various levels of insulation in the building envelope-both the wrap and the building cavity where insulated to control air infiltration and heat loss and to continue the air barrier across both the inside to the outside. The windows are equipped with high-efficiency glazing that controls heat loss and gain. The design called for a white roofing system with high solar reflectance properties and high-efficiency mechanical systems and finishes with high levels of recycled content.

H2M was the architect and mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer and the structural engineer on the project and partnered with Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, Forum, and Capsys Corp. Monadnock Construction was the general contractor on the project and Stephen Winter Associates was the green building consultant.

http://nyrej.com/57252

NYREJ, Westchester County, August 28 – September 10, 2012

See Also:

http://www.capsyscorp.com/nextlevelbuilding/?p=182

http://www.capsyscorp.com/nextlevelbuilding/?p=701

http://www.capsyscorp.com/nextlevelbuilding/?p=639

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

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!

 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