Modular Construction Gains Campus Traction

(from the Chronicle of Higher Education - subscriber-only content) Flexible, sustainable and often more affordable than ground-up construction, factory-built modular construction is finding its place on more educational campuses. Modular buildings go up quickly, once all components are delivered to site, and the elegant, custom-designed new iterations are a far cry from the trailer-like classrooms used by overcrowded schools.

Consider the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab, a new feature on Harvard University's innovation campus. It was built in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 34 sections — each 11 feet wide, 44 feet long and nearly 13 feet tall — and then shipped section-by-section to Massachusetts, where construction workers assembled the pieces on-site and bolted them together. Should Harvard ever want to relocate the building, workers would simply loosen the bolts, move the pieces and then reassemble them. Or, for an existing modern modular building, look to Appalachian State University, which in 2011 completed a 97,000-square-foot modular dorm a year earlier than a traditional structure would have required.

More at the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscriber-only content) 

All news on NetAssets.org