And the Netherlands is unfortunately no exception to the rule. Supply cannot meet the rising demand in the traditional construction sector in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, costs are rising, contributing to the housing affordability crisis, which particularly affects many first-time buyers struggling to buy their first home.
Affordable housing has become something of a global crisis. Buying and renting prices rise beyond the reach of millions of people, and there is nothing to suggest that they will fall any time soon.
"We see a huge demand in the construction industry for new techniques that enable the development of faster and cheaper construction. The only way to cut costs is to reduce production costs"
Precast - The future of a new generation of buildings
The new generation of prefabricated buildings has lighter and stronger structural components. Prefabrication also offers opportunities for high-performance thermal and acoustic walls, floors and ceilings by combining sustainable materials in systems such as sandwich panels.
Nowadays, things can be done much more affordably and efficiently in the factory, but currently, a lot of work is still done on site in the Netherlands, and the rest of the world. This increases the likelihood of poorer quality due to factors such as labour shortages, exposure to the elements and delivery delays. In addition, it is safer to work in a controlled environment than on a construction site. With prefabrication, we can reduce and minimise these risks.
Moreover, a lack of available skilled workers often delays the start of construction projects, sometimes up to a year. There are too few people working in construction. On top of that, the average craftsman is about 50 years old. With the growth of prefabrication, people from the automotive industry, for example, could be retrained and retrained.
The advantages of Prefab
Scale possibilities
Prefabrication can have a huge social impact by providing low-cost (emergency) housing. For example, for students, homeless people, immigrants, etc. In addition, if there is a large-scale disaster, prefab construction can develop shelters that can be sent to the site and quickly assembled to house thousands of people.
Prefabricated structures are reconfigurable and relocatable. They are very versatile. By prefabricating more, the time needed to build a house could be reduced from about nine months to less than one.
Ecologically sustainable
Prefabrication is also environmentally sustainable: more upfront planning means less waste, less rework and less material in the final product.
Factories can control how waste is processed to maximise recycling - which is not feasible on conventional construction sites.
Skilled workers in a controlled factory environment also produce better-quality work than is possible on a construction site. Higher-quality work results in better thermal performance, reducing heating and cooling costs for the end user.
The future lies in precast, so that is why we are currently doing a lot of work to increase our capacity in this area at Ripstaal Group.
Three ways of prefabrication
Simple elements: Beams, columns or other parts of a structure manufactured so that they can be easily bolted on site. The frame is then finished on site.
Façade closing elements: They are used for walls and include elements such as insulation, utilities, waterproofing and external and internal cladding. These components are designed so that they can be assembled quickly and transported flat-packed.
Volumetric systems: Three-dimensional modular objects comprising the floor, ceiling and wall components for one room.
What about prefabricated construction in other countries?
Australia
The collapse of the Australian automotive industry has had devastating consequences: it is estimated that up to 40,000 workers will eventually lose their jobs.
But with a rapidly growing population and cranes covering the skyline of cities, a new manufacturing industry is on the verge of a boom: prefabricated construction.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne are investigating how this emerging industry can provide safe, affordable and sustainable housing while giving former automotive workers the opportunity to transfer their skills.
The Melbourne School of Engineering is leading a new initiative to grow the prefabricated sector's market share within the construction industry from 5% to 15% by 2025, which would contribute to about 20,000 new jobs and $30 billion in growth. They are supporting this research with large-scale testing and training facilities at their recently announced new campus, to be built in Fishermans Bend.
Professor Tuan Ngo, research director of the Australian Research Council Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing in Prefabricated Housing and the Asia-Pacific Research Network for Resilient and Affordable Housing, leads much of this work.
He says Australia can learn a lot from European countries like Sweden, where prefabricated modular housing 70 per cent of the construction industry.
Sweden
Sweden, the magical land of meatballs and ABBA, may hold the key. The country is the world leader in prefabricated construction, a process that can save huge amounts of money on construction costs.
As many as 84 per cent of Swedish detached houses have prefabricated elements, compared with about 5 per cent in the US, UK and Australia.
Prefab and modular house builders in Sweden are pioneers of off-site building and have figured out how to make it a success on a scale few other places have matched.
The rest of Europe
In Germany, 9% of new residential building permits are for prefabricated buildings, while in the Netherlands 20% of all new homes are prefabricated from wood or concrete, according to researchers Dale Steinhardt and Karen Manley of the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.
Japan is another world leader. There, up to 15% of new detached/semi-detached houses are prefabricated.
What does the Netherlands do?
There is a severe shortage of (affordable) housing in the Netherlands. Prefab construction could partly solve this. The nitrogen problem would be solved by its sustainable(er) nature. In addition, less labour is needed to produce and that is precisely what there is a crying shortage of.
Prefab has now developed into a mature method in the Netherlands but it is still too often 'forgotten'. At Ripstaal Group, we are anticipating a sharp rise in demand for prefabricated construction by investing in improved processes and scaling up production capacity. We are also developing all kinds of different homes such as care homes, chalets, garden offices and techniques to make existing homes more sustainable with façade elements or expand through pop up.
