
Prefab housing complex for UC Berkeley students goes up in four days - protomyth
https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/08/02/prefab-housing-complex-for-uc-berkeley-students-built-in-four-days
======
jpeg_hero
> The project, initially approved by the city in 2010 as a hotel, then re-
> approved in 2015 as studio apartments, will be leased to UC Berkeley for
> graduate student housing

8 years of permitting!

Most infuriation article.

~~~
alexisrivas
4 days of box stacking. 8 years of permitting. Multi-unit projects like this
which require discretionary permits and approvals are too slow of a response
for the housing crisis. California state senators enacted laws in 2017 (SB
1069 and AB 2299) which allow Accessory Dwelling Units to be built in
backyards of single family homes. They're full living units with kitchens and
bathrooms, and the state law requires that cities approve them strictly based
on zoning within 120 days of an application being submitted.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Caveat legislative action which overrules city zoning/permitting when placed
near mass transit. Time will tell.

~~~
surfmike
That bill was DOA.

------
jweir
> He’s s still evaluating bottom-line costs.

Four days to assemble, how many days did it take to build, in China?

What about the energy loss in transport? How much carbon was generated by this
project versus if it had been built with modernist techniques. More
interesting if had been been built with pre 20th century techniques.

Watch the Amish build a complex barn in ten hours
[https://sploid.gizmodo.com/watch-the-amish-build-an-
entire-b...](https://sploid.gizmodo.com/watch-the-amish-build-an-entire-barn-
in-less-than-10-ho-1630848773)

~~~
baybal2
>Watch the Amish build a complex barn in ten hours

But that's made out of wood!

>Four days to assemble, how many days did it take to build, in China?

Depends if they were shipping complete panels with infill, hollow panels, or
just precut frame parts, but in all cases it should still be economical to
bring stuff across the pacific.

~~~
jweir
Good point, it would fare better in an earthquake.

> Some 1,400 years ago, tall wood-framed pagodas in Japan were built to 19
> stories tall. In spite of the area’s high seismic activity – including the
> 6.8 magnitude Hyogo-ken Nambu earthquake in 1995 that caused widespread
> damage – these structures still stand today.

[https://csengineermag.com/article/wood-frame-construction-
ad...](https://csengineermag.com/article/wood-frame-construction-advantageous-
in-areas-prone-to-seismic-activity/)

Now, I don't know if actually would fare better than a steel frame in an
earthquake (which this building is very close a fault line), but the Japanese
seemed to have figured out how to do it a long time ago. I don't know because
I am not even close to experienced with wood structures over 3 stories.

~~~
golemiprague
In japan they build pre fabricated building for years, made from steel or
concrete slabs. Those building are pretty solid but in Japan they tend to
destroy them after a while and build new ones instead anyway.

------
ChuckMcM
I don't know if they bought this stuff from the Broad Group[1] in China but
this sort of prefab is catching on. They were never successful at building
their "sky city"[2] which got them a lot of publicity (perhaps the intent). If
it was possible to build it suggests some interesting things like a single sky
city would be possible to house the entire bay area homeless population,
assuming you could fill each living space to its capacity, plus a hospital,
plus mental health and drug treatment centers, plus kitchens and shops in one
building. It starts looking like Silverberg's arcologies.

But I haven't seen any reports on how maintainable these structures are once
built. I presume that Berkeley will be doing that as part of their program.

[1] [https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/broad-group-usa-
target...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/broad-group-usa-targets-
their-first-usa.html)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GrU_2UK0-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GrU_2UK0-c)
originally proposed in 2012 ([https://newatlas.com/broad-sky-city-
one/22983/](https://newatlas.com/broad-sky-city-one/22983/))

------
nikanj
Alas, construction speed isn’t the bottle neck behind the housing crisis

~~~
adrianmonk
You know what would have way more impact on housing affordability? Build it
using traditional construction methods but make it 10 stories instead of 4
stories.

But the city will find some reason why that's absolutely unacceptable. Then
they will go on to talk about how this is just fundamentally a difficult
problem that they haven't found a solution for, but rest assured they are
still looking for ways to solve it.

~~~
jseutter
There is a practical aspect to building height. Berkeley is on an earthquake
fault line, and buildings in the 6-15 storey range have a natural resonance
that tends to match the frequency of earthquake waves.

I'm having difficulty finding references to this, so maybe it's not as big a
deal as I thought?

[http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/hazards/earthquakes/...](http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/hazards/earthquakes/howAffectBuildings.html)

~~~
ThrustVectoring
The breakpoints have more to do with other parts of building codes. Wood
framing is only strong enough to support three floors (unless you use cross
laminated timber, which is a relatively new construction technology).
Furthermore there are increasing requirements for fire suppression and
accessibility as you add height. The breakpoints are basically either 2-floor
duplex through quadplex that don't need elevators, or putting three floors of
wood-framed apartments over a concrete or steel podium that contains
commercial space and parking. Podium construction basically explains why so
many 4 and 5 floor buildings get put up - it's _significantly_ cheaper than
the more expensive material required to make stuff strong enough for taller
buildings.

~~~
erik_seaberg
Isn't the land a lot of the cost? Why isn't it worthwhile to spend 3x on
construction and collect from 2x as many occupants?

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Depends on the location. In the Bay Area a large portion of the cost is having
your capital tied up for like 5+ years while trying to get your project
approved.

------
alexisrivas
Thing with prefab is it's been tried many times before, and hasn't succeeded.
Why? Most companies take traditional construction methods, and simply move
them into a factory where there's cheaper labor. But then the assembly process
and on-site finish work is laborious and expensive (in this case, 70%+ of
costs). For prefab to succeed, there needs to be a ground up redesign of the
entire building process, from design and engineering to manufacturing and
assembly, with software at the core to enable a system that's scalable and
allows for different designs across numerous projects, and with the actual
building to be made of parts that truly click together like legos. YC F3
company Cover (i'm a founder) is doing this.

~~~
tomarr
I've been involved in modular buildings in the past and one area that seems to
end up informing design choices (in a negative way) is the size of elements
that can be readily transported from a central facility to a site. Having bays
of modules related to wagon width often, and regular joints/seams seems to end
up driving basic ideas like wall loactions and floorplate thicknesses. Have
you evolved much in this aspect?

------
wanderfowl
In other news, $2100+ for a small unit is viewed as 'affordable' for grad
students to UC Berkeley administrators. I know there's a rent crisis out that
neck of the woods, but that's some quality lack of perspective.

~~~
jacquesm
That's ridiculous. Even in Amsterdam student housing is ~450 for single
occupants, and the tuition is a lot cheaper as well.

At $2180 it is probably better to just move into your office or lab and sleep
there.

The best way to deal with these idiot prices is to rent a regular house a bit
off the beaten path and split the rent with a couple of mates.

~~~
nikanj
It’s illegal to sleep in an office. That legislation, like many others, was
put in place to protect renters and workers but now ends up hurting them
instead

~~~
smhost
why can't we write laws that are conditional, where we explain the intent of
the law, and then the law can be ignored when the conditions aren't met

~~~
sgc
I mean that's kind of what a law is. It stipulates things for a restricted set
of circumstances. Should laws be continually refined to better define the
circumstances? Of course. But if you rule by loophole you have created a sieve
of a boat for a social structure.

~~~
smhost
oh, well, i wouldn't want that. so maybe not ignore the law, but what about
just writing in the intent anyway, wouldn't that help with leniency?

~~~
sgc
Laws are supposed to be written in such a way as to communicate their intent.
It's already there, it's just in terse, technical language. The problem with
spelling out intent is it creates a huge attack surface to get a law thrown
out or circumvented. It is sort of like trying to program using natural
language. People understand better but it functions worse.

~~~
GauntletWizard
The way we fight this in programming is comments and documentation. Perhaps we
need something similar for laws? I see the Federalist Papers mentioned quite
often in constitutional law; are there other bodies of debate and paper that
provide similar justification around other laws? There might also be room for
"non-binding" clauses when writing the law.

~~~
sgc
Depending on the governing body, there is a process of comment and redaction
before a law is adopted which is recorded and can be used to make a case. It
serves such a purpose.

------
adrianmonk
Somewhat similar methods were used to build a hotel in San Antonio, Texas back
in 1968. It wasn't done in 4 days, but the rooms were built off site, complete
with furnishings, then installed in the building.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Palacio_del_Rio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Palacio_del_Rio)

EDIT: As a bonus, the wikipedia article links to a video about the hotel's
construction, and at the 2-minute mark, they talk about how an IBM System/360
computer is used to do critical path analysis for the project planning.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7shgCkCfhU#t=2m0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7shgCkCfhU#t=2m0s)

------
goodoldboys
If only the approval process didn't take 250x as long as the actual building
of the units...

------
userbinator
Hopefully it will stay up a lot longer than 4 days...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16716970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16716970)

Maybe I'm just old, but I've always had this uneasy feeling about prefab
construction.

~~~
smittywerben
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_balcony_collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_balcony_collapse)

I remember this was a big incident back in 2015. At least steel can't rot.

~~~
jacquesm
It'll rust just fine and the acoustics are terrible. A container based
building I worked in had a fridge several units over that you could clearly
hear. Steel construction needs to be clad properly or you're going to hear
everybody moving around.

------
tim333
It's striking given the housing shortage and homeless problems how quickly
things could be improved just by giving permission to build stuff.

~~~
baybal2
... or by scrapping the permitting mechanism altogether

~~~
hacym
Ever been to a country without a permitting system?

~~~
baybal2
Eh, yes. Have a more specific question?

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baybal2
> prefabricated all-steel modular units made in China

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=3-9fMcqxg4k](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3-9fMcqxg4k)

Not really a prefab. It is LGSF + foam concrete, pretty common outside North
America

~~~
cm2187
I wonder what the sound insulation looks like. Particularly in the context of
student residences.

~~~
baybal2
Foam concrete used for insulation is at around 200-300 kg per cube. Should be
enough.

Right now, I'm renting in a high rise with precast foam concrete insulation
blocks in between apartment walls. Never been troubled by that.

------
ams6110
> prefabricated all-steel modular units made in China

Hope they were tested for formaldehyde and other VOCs, lead paint, etc.

~~~
dfee
“This product is known to cause cancer in the state of California”

~~~
paul_milovanov
Isn't everything?

~~~
0xcde4c3db
A dirty little secret of Prop 65 warnings is that businesses often put them on
things as a lazy CYA measure, not actually having evaluated whether they've
exceeded the limits.

~~~
dfee
Yeah, or an understandable side effect. The warning, when applied to
everything is just noise.

------
dev_dull
> _Imagine a four-story apartment building going up in four days, and from
> steel._

That’s easy to imagine. Now something that’s difficult to imagine is them
finishing the permitting and environmental impact studies in less than 3
_months_!

------
dopeboy
I live pretty close to Berkeley and have walked past this a couple times.

I'm impressed that the developer embarked on an experiment. That kind of
thinking is welcome for solving the housing problem. It didn't seem like a
huge saving but I imagine there's a lot of learnings here that can be put
towards v2.

That said, that price point is not for Cal students, especially if it is
single occupancy only. My guess is this might be geared towards older students
/ grad students who want to maintain a certain standard of life they are used
to.

------
sologoub
Doesn’t say much about the materials used for walls/insulation/etc. No info on
HVAC either.

It does compare these to containers. After spending a few weeks overall inside
an office building built of recycled shipping containers, I’d definitely think
twice about considering these at any price - the air inside gets very stale
and humid from breath alone. Nothing “breathes” inside and you end up in a
very unpleasant tin can situation.

Good AC/dehumidifier, strategically planted plants and ventilation can help,
but never fully cure this environment. At least not easily.

At $2200, it’s downright a ripoff.

------
patrickg_zill
One of the rules of thumb for rental property sale price is monthly rent * 120
(10 years).

So given $2180 per month, you have a per-unit valuation of $261,600 . Somehow
that seems "out of whack"...

~~~
closeparen
Not while real estate is appreciating dramatically. A unit would be worth
several times that. Play with the NYT rent/buy calculator for the Bay Area’s
recent numbers.

------
rustcharm
No elevator? They're going to get ADA lawsuits before it even opens.

~~~
analogmemory
> ADA accessible units are on the ground floor.

------
ravenstine
Am I the only person who thinks this is luxury?

[https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/08/2711...](https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/08/2711-Shattuck-Interior-View-9_23_2015-900x514.jpg)

> The modules are effectively ready-to-go 310-square-feet studio apartments
> with a bathroom, closets, a front entry area, and a main room with a
> kitchenette and sofa that converts to a queen-size bed. They come with flat-
> screen TVs and coffee makers.

Affordable my ass. They built these things to bilk young people out of more
money because they know my generation and Gen Z grew up spoiled and have
suburbanite parents that think nothing's too good for their son or daughter.

If I was going to university, and was serious about getting a worthwhile
degree, the last thing on my mind would be TV, and why the hell would I want
to blow so much money on a fancy studio that I'm going to use primarily for
sleeping? I'd prefer something much more minimalist, perhaps even with
community restrooms and showers. Give me a closet with a cot or even a hammock
for all I care, so long as I don't have to waste even more student loan money
on what's essentially nothing. Boy, we're sure spoiled these days.

~~~
simonsarris
Yeah its quite something just how far the concept of _dormitory_ living has
shifted. I would expect student housing to be some of the most austere options
out there on the market.

A large desk, a small bed, and the real luxuries if they can be got: _Lots_ of
natural light and freedom from noise.

The studio pictured seems to do OK on the lux, but the area granted to
television and whatever's below it seems wacky. Then again, if people want it
and will pay for it...

~~~
ghaff
The lux is mostly having both a private bathroom and private kitchenette--
which I never had as a grad student--although I did have a private room for
some of my time. Other than that, a flat panel TV is, what? $300? And slightly
nicer looking, in part because it's new, minimalist furniture doesn't add a
lot of cost either.

ADDED: This seems to have been originally designed as a hotel or studio
apartments but is being leased to Berkeley as grad student housing. They're
pretty small as apartments go but are probably on the high-end side for
student housing, even grad student.

