Startup Cloud Apartments has a patented design for contemporary, cool-looking apartment modules and snap-together construction
California engineer Curtis Wong is applying tech innovation to the affordable housing crisis and hoping his ideas will take hold across the U.S.
The goal is to wipe out the negative image of modular construction, the way that the electric car went from being an outlandish idea to today’s Tesla. The unique angle on construction is that the high-tech units are shipped to site 95-per-cent complete, a “plug and play” approach to building.
“What we are doing with Cloud Apartments is using the same mindset with modular, because currently modular is not standardized. Every building is still a one off, and totally different.The hotel industry has already cottoned on, with major hotel brands such as Marriott now building modular construction. The chain just built the world’s tallest modular hotel in New York with pre-fabricated and pre-furnished guest rooms, a 26-storey building topped off with a modular rooftop bar.
Part of the reason that the industry is starting to look to off-site construction is for the same reasons that European countries and Japan embraced the method: to reduce energy costs. The labour shortage is another. “I’ve been in construction for over 20 years and the funny thing is we always talk about a shortage of labour. Skilled labour has always been a challenge but now it’s a challenge getting labour of any kind. And it’s not just through peak periods,” he adds. “We don’t have enough people to sustain us through a somewhat slower market over the next six to 12 months.”
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