NEW YORK | 461 Dean St (Atlantic Yards B2) | 322 FT | 33 FLOORS

[NYguy]

CNN report....(check link)

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/01...going-modular/

High-rise housing going modular



Feb 1, 2012

It's an idea that has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry: Use prefabricated modules to build more than 6,000 housing units. If the real estate development firm Forest City Ratner is able to turn the idea into a reality, the firm will build the tallest modular construction building in the world, a 32-story residential tower in Brooklyn, New York

..."I think we figured out a way to do this," said structural engineer David Farnsworth. He and his colleagues at the design and engineering firm ARUP spent two years researching and developing ways to build a high-rise modular building.

"The first challenge that we had to overcome was how can we make a modular system that can be built at height and withstand the wind loads," Farnsworth said. "You don't want the building to be moving too much in the wind that people feel it and then they get sick."

While the centerpiece, an 18,000 seat NBA arena that will be the new home for the Nets, is nearing completion, the rest of the 22-acre site is largely quiet. Forest City Ratner’s director of construction, Bob Sanna, believes modular construction will change that.

"We were determined to find a way ... that we can develop a building type that had a little bit more predictability, a little bit more cost certainty in the delivery mechanism," Sanna said.

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/brookl...tdUVaLPtWY4m1K

Sky's the limit on pre-fab towers for Atlantic Yards developer

February 8, 2012
By  RICH CALDER

There’s a lot more riding on whether developer Bruce Ratner can build the world’s tallest pre-fabricated building than just completing Brooklyn’s long-delayed Atlantic Yards project. Ratner’s company stands to position itself as the go-to developer for what could become a soaring modular-building industry.

Bob Sanna, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner Cos., said yesterday that the company is willing to “share” such technology and is open to also factory-building “modules” for other developers to build modular towers.

“This is our iPhone moment,” Sanna said during a real estate roundtable hosted by the Brooklyn Historical Society. “Certainly as we take this business forward, we are not trying to hide this technology, and not sell it. I think it will be in our interest to share it.”

FCR is currently seeking financing to build a prefabricated, 32-story residential building at the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue — the first of 16 towers slated for a once financially doomed project that also includes an under-construction arena for the NBA’s Nets.

Sanna said modular construction — where whole sections are built off-site and then attached to the building like Legos — could slash costs for the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards development by at least 25 percent under “modest” estimates...

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/re...-c-ratner.html

Square Feet | The 30-Minute Interview
Bruce C. Ratner

By VIVIAN MARINO
March 13, 2012

Q. What is the status of the Atlantic Yards housing? Groundbreaking was supposed to have begun this year.

A Breaking ground on the housing we had hoped would begin this year, and it will begin this year, toward the end of the year. A major reason that it’s gotten delayed is a strong desire to do modular.

Let me just say, there’s a lot of construction going on there besides the arena. Part of what we are doing and had to do was the infrastructure. We also had to move a railroad storage yard. And we’re working on additional infrastructure: the subway tunnel that connects the project, the arena, with existing subways.

Q. Why go with prefab housing?

A. It’s hard for me to do things unless I have passion for them and unless I think they have some change and impact in a positive way. The modular fits into that vein, in the sense that construction — high-rise construction, commercial construction — has not changed in 50 to 100 years. We need to figure out economic ways to build our cities, ways in which we can build affordable housing or middle-income housing.

Q. Is it significantly cheaper to build?

A. It’ll save initially 15 to 20 percent on cost. What kind of long-term effect will it have? Potentially it will be tremendous, because we’re talking about labor cost savings. Long term, we’re talking about speed, efficiency, because what we’re doing in the factories is really not that different than you would do on the site.

[NYguy]

http://www.globest.com/news/12_340/n...t/-321081.html

Gilmartin: ‘Modular is Coming’ to High-Rises

May 1, 2012
By Paul Bubny

“The fact is that modular construction is coming” to buildings taller than the low-rises and single-family homes most commonly associated with this construction technique, Forest City Ratner Corp.’s MaryAnne Gilmartin told a Real Estate Lenders Association audience Tuesday. First, it will be coming to FCRC’s massive Atlantic Yards mixed-use project, where the developer plans to start construction on a 34-story rental apartment tower later this year—the first of 16 buildings there that FCRC intends to put up with modular components assembled largely off-site.

Via modular building techniques, FCRC believes it can accomplish 60% of the work on the 340,000-square-foot B2, as that first Atlantic Yards residential high-rise is now known, at an off-site factory, said Gilmartin, EVP of commercial development and leasing. And although the company is underwriting the construction with an 18-month timeframe in mind, it believes as much as six months can be shaved off by going modular. Meanwhile, she said, renters at the tower will find the same design standards as they would in a conventionally built apartment high-rise: “No one will feel they got short shrift because they’re in a modular building.”

Modular building is still mostly a European phenomenon, Gilmartin said, noting that the world’s tallest tower produced thus far with this system is a 25-story structure outside London. FCRC intends to change that, with the goal of deploying a modular factory at Brooklyn Navy Yard not only for its own projects but also eventually for third-party customers, “our competitors,” she pointed out.

[NYguy]

http://www.rew-online.com/2012/06/06...-for-builders/

Bikers moving out to make way for builders

June 6, 2012
By Sarah Trefethen

Forest City Ratner is four to six weeks away from signing a lease for 100,000 s/f of factory space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, according to executive vice president MaryAnne Gilmartin. The space is currently occupied by NYC Bike Share, which is scheduled to relocate to a permanent home in Sunset Park this fall. When that happens, Forest City will ramp up the city’s first factory for building residential high-rise buildings.

The developer plans to build a 32-story, 350-unit residential tower at Atlantic Yards by inserting the factory-built building modules into a steel chassis built on site, Gilmartin told guests at the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation’s “Glimpse the Future of the AEC Industry” event Tuesday morning. The cost savings will be at least 20 percent compared to traditional construction, Gilmartin said.

Forest City is still in negotiations with construction unions over the details of the project, but Gilmartin said she expects that in-factory workers will be paid $36 per hour, while the construction workers on-site will make $90 per hour.

[NYguy]

http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2012...s/?stream=true

Foundation Work Approved for First Residential Building at Atlantic Yards


By Brownstoner
07/06/2012

Forest City Ratner has received approval from the Department of Buildings to begin certain foundation work that must happen before the Barclays Arena opens in September, notes Atlantic Yards Report; the new building application for the 33-story apartment tower at 461 Dean Street still has not yet been green-lighted by the city. There were in fact three separate permits (one, two and three) issued yesterday, all of which relate to “minimal foundation work.” The tower, known as Building 2, will consist of 349 units, half of which will be market-rate and half of which will be affordable.

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...TATE/309099975

Legoland comes to Brooklyn
Decision looms on plans for world's tallest prebuilt towers in downtown Brooklyn.




By Theresa Agovino
September 9, 2012

Architect Christopher Sharples knows what most people think of when they hear the term "modular construction."

"A bunch of shoeboxes sitting on top of one another," said the SHoP Architects principal. Soon he hopes to shatter that negative stereotype in record-setting fashion. Mr. Sharples is part of a core group of 18 people brought together by Forest City Ratner to design a 32-story residential tower made up of 930 prebuilt modules containing portions of finished apartments—everything from bathrooms to kitchens—bolted to a steel frame.

It will not only be the world's tallest modular structure but likely the least uniform one as well, boasting four different façades. It will also take a prominent position next to the Barclays Center, in the developer's Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn. There it may ultimately be joined by 15 other modular apartment buildings, at least one soaring as high as 50 stories.

"We can show we can build modularly and be creative," said Mr. Sharples. "This type of project is why we are in business."

What remains to be seen, however, is whether it actually gets built. Forest City will construct a prototype module this month and then decide by Christmas on whether to build modular towers or conventional ones. The choice hinges largely on whether Forest City can ink a deal with unions that would require them to take significant pay cuts to help the developer achieve its goal of lowering construction costs by up to 25%. Saving that money is especially important because 50% of the 4,500 rental apartments planned for Atlantic Yards are designated to be affordable or low-income housing. Forest City hopes that its system eventually will become a model for other large-scale developers.

[NYguy]

http://parkslope.patch.com/articles/...er-in-december

Atlantic Yards Developer to Break Ground on First Residential Tower
The 32-floor apartment building next to the Barclays Center will be the first of 16 towers slated for the 22-acre development.

September 21, 2012
By Amy Sara Clark and Paul Leonard

At Friday’s ribbon cutting for the Barclays Center, Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner announced that groundbreaking on the site’s first residential tower, reminding the public that the Nets arena is just a small part of the much contested 22-acre project.

"Today is only one part of our larger Atlantic Yards vision. There is more to come,” he said, naming Dec. 18 as the date construction begins on the first of 16 planned apartment towers.

Located next to the arena at 461 Dean Street, the 32-story building will be nearly all housing, with 363 apartments, 50 percent of which will be “affordable to low-, moderate- and middle-income households,” according to a fact sheet provided by Forest City Ratner (see photo gallery for the full sheet).

It is designed as a luxury building with a 24-hour doorman, a fiitness center, bike storage, resident lounge, game room, yoga/dance studio and roof terrace. Washer & Dryer appliances to be located in each apartment.

Forest City Ratner has not yet decided whether the building will be built using traditional construction methods, or be made of modular units, which will be created in a factory and assembled on site. There has been some debate over whether a prefab building will look as good as a traditionally built one.

[THE BIG APPLE]

I hope the Miss Brooklyn Tower isn't built. It will help rape the arena on all four sides (plus it's supposed to be built on the beautiful plaza, don't know how that's possible). This I'm fine with, only 322 ft.

[NYguy]

http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6283

Atlantic Yards is bringing the tallest modular construction building in the world to Brooklyn.










Bay Brown
10.03.2012

On September 21, the glass doors to the Barclays Center opened wide as developer Bruce Ratner, Chairman and CEO, Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC), emceed a ribbon-cutting lovefest of praise and thanks for all those who made the arena happen, from Borough President Marty Markowitz to Nets NBA team majority owner and Barclays Center co-owner Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.

While the ribbon cutting was pro forma, “Cousin Brucy”—Markowitz’s pet name for Ratner—did invite everyone back for a groundbreaking ceremony on December 18. While he gave no details, SHoP confirmed that this was the public announcement that FCRC had, in fact, decided to move forward with modular construction for the first residential building, B2, the 32-story residential building that will be the first of 14 planned residential buildings.

SHoP was commissioned to design B2 regardless of the construction method. And the original design was not dissimilar aesthetically, explained Chris Sharples, principal of SHoP Architects and its fabrication arm, SHoP Construction. But SHoP proved to FCRC that they are capable of more than decorating a shed. Their digital prowess and ability to create a system that directly links design to fabrication on the Barclays Center made them the logical architect for B2, which, at 32 stories, will be the tallest modular construction building in the world.

SHoP has master planned two more residential buildings, B3 and B4, for a collective 1,500 units of housing in the first phase. While the architects have not been named, construction for B3 and B4 is to begin six to nine months after B2 starts. Two more buildings, an office building and possibly a hotel will round out phase one. Phase two, as per the current EIS, will include 11 more residential buildings, 8 acres of open space, and neighborhood retail. However, with the exception of B2, these plans are subject to securing financing, according to FCRC.

FCRC’s decision to go mod has significant ramifications for the field of high-rise construction. While there are few examples of high-rise modular construction, most notably a 25-story dormitory in Wolverhampton, England, SHoP is confident that B2 will work. “We have never done a modular high rise, but we have done modular assembly,” said Sharples. Barclays itself had over 1,114 facade components fabricated off-site. He points to the work of architect KieranTimberlake and engineer Arup at Yale University as informative to their work, emphasizing the added importance of a cohesive team in modular construction. “Your partners are critical in a process like this,” Sharples said, referring to his B2 colleagues, the fabricator XSite Modular and Arup.

“The way we work with digital design and BIM at SHoP Construction allows for better fabrication,” said Sharples, who not only uses building information modelling, but together with fellow partner Jonathan Mallie has created integrated design and construction platforms that use a cloud application that allows for better communication between all parties on the A/E team. On B2, SHoP Construction is serving as the Project Integrator, managing exterior wall consulting and procurement, including construction sequencing, and overseeing supply chain management of production models and drawings to the factory floor.

A foundation and podium will be created on site, while modular units will be constructed in a single factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard where they will have access to a gantry. In turn, the 900 units—60 different types—will be transported on site and installed as, simultaneously, a steel frame is bolted in place floor-by-floor to brace the building, giving it lateral stability just as you would in conventional building.

[Duck From NY]

I actually think those renders look good.

I don't know much about this new method of production and construction, but I wouldn't mind having an example of it here in NYC.

[NYguy]

I though SHoP was always going to design the other two buildings in the rendering, but from that last piece it's still up in the air...

SHoP has master planned two more residential buildings, B3 and B4, for a collective 1,500 units of housing in the first phase. While the architects have not been named, construction for B3 and B4 is to begin six to nine months after B2 starts.

[NYguy]

http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot....-wont-get.html

October 23, 2012

Gilmartin, speaking to investors, said Forest City plans 1500 units on the arena block. The first tower, B2, is being built on a site "fairly close to the size of 80 DeKalb," the tower Forest City built at Fort Greene Park.

"Much of what we're doing with B2 has been done in the likeness of 80 DeKalb, which has turned out to be a tremendous building for us," she said. B2 should have about 363 units, half at market-rate, half subsidized (though with few larger units).

[NYRebel]

Groundbreaking! December 18th

I hope six to nine months afterwards B3 and B4 has it's shine too. Can't wait until the entire Yards development is done though.

[NYC4Life]

1:19 PM
Atlantic Yards Residential Tower Set To Break Ground Next Month

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stori...und-next-month

By: NY1 News

The developer of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards is set to break ground on a new 32 story residential tower next month.

The building will consist of modular units that will be assembled at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in conjunction with Skansa USA.

The company estimates that about 125 unionized workers will be employed for the project.

The architectural firm that designed the Barclays Center will also design the modules.

The building is projected to open in 2014.

© 1999-2012 NY1 News and Time Warner Cable Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[NYguy]

http://archinect.com/news/article/62...ower-after-all

Atlantic Yards Will Be Getting 32-Story, SHoP-designed Modular Tower After All

Thanks to a deal with construction unions, the developer of the controversial Atlantic Yards project will move ahead with a 363-unit, 32-story prefab apartment building in Downtown Brooklyn. Designed by SHoP Architects, Skanska and ARUP, it is tentatively the tallest prefab tower in the world

http://observer.com/2012/11/legoland...ilding/#slide4



There are 363 apartments made out of 930 "mods," prefab units that snap together to create each apartment, with holes connecting the mod rooms.

[NYRebel]

Originally Posted by NYguy

http://archinect.com/news/article/62...ower-after-all

Atlantic Yards Will Be Getting 32-Story, SHoP-designed Modular Tower After All

















http://observer.com/2012/11/legoland...ilding/#slide4



There are 363 apartments made out of 930 "mods," prefab units that snap together to create each apartment, with holes connecting the mod rooms.

Nice!

Today I guess this is what they will unveil Downtown. I love it! The best rendering so far and I like the model apartment too. I thought it would like sloppy and too boxy but it looks kind of cool.

I still think people wont appreciate the magnitude of this (entire) project until the majority of it is finished. But I do like these new renderings.

[Fardeb]

Those new renderings are the best it's looked so far.

Is the process they are using similiar in concept to that crazy tower in China they keep talking about building? Obviously without the extreme speed or height as key points.

[CCs77]

At Atlantic Yards, Ready to Test Plans for Prefab Tower


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/ny...nyregion&_r=1&

In a warehouse deep inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a small team of carpenters, electricians and engineers have secretly labored for months on an assembly system for turning tubular steel chassis into fully equipped apartments that can be stacked and bolted together at a construction site.

On Dec. 18, they will be put to the test, as Bruce C. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, breaks ground for the world’s tallest prefabricated, or modular, building, a 32-story residential tower at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street. It is the first of 15 planned modular buildings at the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards site; some are to rise to 50 stories.

If it works, Mr. Ratner and his partners say, they will be at the forefront of a new industry.

It is an ambitious and risky undertaking, more so than the $1 billion Barclays Center arena that Mr. Ratner opened there three months ago.

Currently, the tallest modular building is a 25-story dormitory in Britain. In the United States, modular buildings rarely go above 10 stories. The cost of steel bracing has been prohibitive.

But next spring, 125 workers at the factory in Building 293 at the Navy Yard will begin churning out 930 modules — typically 14 feet wide, 35 feet long and 10 feet tall — equipped with floors, walls, electric lines, plumbing, kitchens, toilets, exterior facades and even towel racks.

[NYguy]

It is the first of 15 planned modular buildings at the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards site; some are to rise to 50 stories.

I didn't think they would all be built that way. But if it works, why not?