Prefabricated housing is the next generation construction industry - a game changer in the cost of housing, sustainability, efficiency and productivity. And, it's never looked better:

• Prefabricated (or modular) housing is manufactured off-site in advance, and transported and assembled on site. Tektum’s House2.0 takes just 12 weeks to build in the factory, and is ready to occupy within a week of installation on site.
• Amid Australia’s housing affordability problem, prefabricated homes offer a solution.  Experts say prefab housing has the potential to reduce the cost of a new dwelling by at least 10 per cent (excluding the purchase cost of land). In the UK, case studies show savings of 10% to 15% in building costs and a 40% reduction in construction timelines. Manufacturing is more efficient, and factories don’t lose time due to bad weather!
• Prefabricated homes have less environmental impact than conventional buildings – Tektum’s HOUSE2.0 is constructed almost entirely from renewable, recycled or recyclable materials. Its design also incorporates environmentally sustainable features such as solar power, solar hot water, recycled rainwater water, passive and active technologies for optimal climate control that would be costly to incorporate through conventional construction methods.
• Factory production tolerances mean modular buildings are better sealed against draughts, which in conventional buildings can account for 15-25% of winter heat loss.
• Production in a factory allows more scope for R&D, improving the performance of buildings, including making them more resilient to natural disasters. Tektum’s House2.0 design addresses external threats like cyclones and bushfires. Factory built houses in Japan survived the 1995 Hanshin Great Earthquake, where many site-built houses did not.
• Housing construction is one bright spot in an economy struggling for direction as the commodities boom winds down. In the 12 months to June, building approvals rose 8.6 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
• Driven principally by Sydney and Melbourne, there will be an estimated 200,000 new dwellings started this financial year.
• The Australian construction industry creates more than $150b contribution to GDP (10%) of which the prefabricated housing sector is just $4.6b (3%). The sector is expected to grow at more than 5% per annum compared to the overall industry at 2.3% through to 2023. This rosy outlook aligns well with Australia’s Construction Vision 2020, a government-commissioned plan for the property and construction industry which strongly supports the role of prefabrication.
• The industry also has the potential to help safeguard manufacturing jobs, as the workforce from Australia’s ailing car industry could potentially shift to manufacturing buildings instead.
• However, Australia is behind the curve – while less than 5% of new detached residential buildings in Australia are modular green buildings, Japan’s rate is 15%, and Sweden tops out at 84%. The opportunity for growth is only limited by imagination.