#assembleren

According to the company, the new 3D modular homes are 90% fabricated within a factory similar to how smaller products such as phones or shoes are made - complete with interior decoration, wiring, plumbing, kitchen sanitary ware, furniture and other facilities already installed for the new homeowner.

The build presentation, which started promptly at 9:30 AM after a brief launching ceremony, kicked off with workers stacking each module like building blocks through a coordinated team effort using a crane.  First, the living room was assembled followed by the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom on the first floor - followed by the terrace, bedroom and utility rooms on the second floor - all in less than three hours.

"Thanks to our special materials, our rate of assembling houses is really fast," Zhuoda group vice president Tan BuYong explained (translated).

“Since 90% of the houses we build are completed in a factory prior to the actual on-site construction, we only need to do on-site follow-up work to complete a build.  This not only avoids the pollution caused by traditional construction sites, but also dramatically reduces construction costs by thinking about houses as a traditional manufactured product.”

Because all of the home modules are built in a centralized location with all of the necessary supplies and labor at-hand in a consistent working environment, the company is able to save many costs that are common in traditional construction processes that are located at an off-site location.  Because of the reduction of transportation, labor, material, machinery and assembly costs, the low cost of producing the final homes are passed along to the home owners - which essentially means homes that are much more affordable than those built from scratch using traditional construction methods.

According to Tan, the company’s new materials are sourced from industrial and agricultural wastes and are capable of withstanding earthquakes with a magnitude of 9.0 and are also fireproof and waterproof. This new material contains no formaldehyde, ammonia, radon and other harmful substances. While the company is touting their materials as being capable of withstanding the elements, they are also saying that the material can be made to meet a variety of aesthetic qualities desired by the homeowner including  jade, marble, wood, granite and other decorative sheet textures.  Adventurous health-conscious home owners even have the option to have Chinese herbs embedded within the walls for ‘built-in aromatherapy’.

“The traditional villa can take at least six months to construct, but our 3D module villas take just ten days from the beginning of production in our factory to the final assembly at a specific build site,” explains An Yongliang, a Zhuoda Group R & D engineer. The construction of this two-story villa has been built with 6 3D modules, each weighing approximately 100kg (220 pounds) per square meter.

So far, the company has applied for over 22 patents on their new material and has signed contracts with more than 40 local government projects.  By 2016, Zhuoda’s production capacity is expected to reach 2 billion square meters with an output value of 7 trillion RMB.

As for the price of an assembled home built with the new material?"The house built with our new material, including  furniture, kitchen utensils and other equipment, costs only 3,500 RMB/square meter ($564)," adds Tan.