Prefabricated Assembled Housing

Prefabricated assembled housing is a building form that involves the industrial production of building components and their on-site assembly, offering advantages such as shortened construction periods and reduced pollution.

Main Types Prefabricated assembled housing can be mainly divided into three categories:

1. Panel Assembly Type: This type uses prefabricated wall panels and floor slabs as core components, which are assembled on-site to form the building structure. Its advantage lies in expanding the indoor usable area, but its design flexibility is relatively limited, making it suitable for residential or factory buildings with a high degree of standardization.
2. Box Assembly Type: This type is composed of prefabricated functional units (such as independent room modules). The construction speed is 50%-70% faster than traditional methods. However, due to the large volume and heavy weight of the modules, it has high requirements for transportation and lifting equipment, and is mostly used for temporary buildings or rapid deployment projects.
3. Frame Assembly Type: This type forms a frame with prefabricated beams, columns, and other structural components, and then fills in the walls and floor slabs. This type of structure is highly flexible and suitable for multi-story or complex buildings, but it requires on-site pouring of some connection nodes, which has high requirements for construction accuracy.

Technical Characteristics The technology of prefabricated assembled housing covers prefabricated concrete structures and steel structures, with components including prefabricated products such as beams, slabs, walls, and columns. For example, the installation of a single-story modular house requires sequential completion of steps such as chassis frame construction, floor joist laying, wall module erection, internal partition wall frame installation, second-floor floor beam laying, and roof truss hoisting. Some projects use mortise-and-tenon joints for rapid beam connection, with 5-ton foundation piles fixed by base plates, allowing the main structure to be completed in just 14 days, significantly more efficient than traditional construction.

Development History China's prefabricated concrete technology began in the 1950s and was initially used for factory and residential construction. In the 1970s, under the promotion of the 'Three Industrializations' policy in construction, technical systems such as large-panel structures and box structures were formed. In the mid-1980s, it stagnated due to cost and quality defects. After the 21st century, it has recovered due to production efficiency and environmental advantages. Currently, companies such as Vanke Group have developed prefabricated shear wall residential structural systems and applied prestressed prefabricated concrete assembled integral frame structures in projects such as Nanjing Jindiyufang.

Applications and Policies Modular buildings, as a more integrated model, have established industrial bases in Fujian Province and other places with policy support, achieving a reduction in construction waste of over 70%. Chinese-made prefabricated houses are selling well overseas, with exports of movable houses from the Guangzhou Customs area reaching 1.4 billion yuan in the first four months of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 38.1%.