The world’s first mobile building is a three-story 9,300-square-foot, earthquake resistant apartment block wholly constructed indoors at a shipyard which, much like an Archigram dream, albeit less fantastically rendered, may be transported in one piece by car, crane, or boat. The modular building, which is 40 feet high, 108 feet wide and weighs 220 tons, was developed by Neapo, a Finnish company that has established itself as a force in the shipbuilding industry. Over the past couple of years, Neapo has applied the modular steel sandwich construction borrowed from ship construction technology to small pieces of architecture, such as a day-care center and several single-family houses.

The company made a huge jump with the development of applying a FIXCEL ® steel-frame sensor to large scale construction projects. The material, which is technically very strong, rigid and lightweight, gives the building a strength comparable to concrete construction, but at a fraction of the weight. Using standard building materials, the apartment building would have weighed five times more. Neapo hopes that the quality of the construction factory-made houses will increase given that they will not be subjected to the temperament of the weather. In the meantime, this particular building will remain docked at Turku, on the southeast coast of Finland, for a few months until the rent runs out, before moving somewhere else along the coast.

[via Gizmodo]

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

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