The European Modular Briefing by Lars Janowski

They put out chairs for the crane day

The European Modular Briefing Dear Reader, In Oss they put out a small tribune so neighbours could watch houses arrive by crane. That is this week's picture of modular building in Europe. Not a factory tour. A row of seats facing a plot, while 39 finished apartments swing in from a truck. Beside it sit a five-storey timber stack that does not look modular, a priced garden home for Irish back gardens, a design contest for nineteen flats on Gran Canaria, a Valencian protocol for a plant that...

2 days ago • 9 min read

Eight years of paperwork, ten days of crane

The European Modular Briefing Dear Reader, Modular building has a speed problem, and it isn't in the factory. This week the fastest numbers in Europe were crane days. Ten days for 48 modules in Barcelona. One day for a concrete house in the Ain. The slow numbers sat around them, in permit files, zoning plans, appeal courts and legal status that runs out before the building does. So this issue is about the clock, and where the time goes once the box is already finished. Every story links to...

9 days ago • 12 min read

Every country has a 'standard'. None of them agree.

The European Modular Briefing Dear Reader, I write this newsletter because the module is the easy part of modular building. The rules around it and the money behind it decide whether a box ever gets a tenant, and they move every week, in a different country each time. So once a week I read the new rules and the project news from across Europe and pick the few that matter to people who build or approve modular and container housing. Every story links to its source. Every story ends with my...

15 days ago • 13 min read