Prefabricated House Assembly-style Building

Prefabricated houses, also known as prefabricated assembly-style buildings, are constructed by industrializing the production of building components and assembling them on-site.

Main Types and Technologies

The main types of prefabricated houses include panel assembly, box assembly, and frame assembly. Panel assembly uses prefabricated wall panels and floor slabs as core components, which can expand the usable area but have limited design flexibility. Box assembly combines prefabricated functional units, increasing construction speed by 50%-70%, but requiring higher transportation and lifting equipment. Modular buildings represent a more integrated model. The technologies encompass prefabricated concrete structures and steel structures, with components including prefabricated beams, slabs, walls, columns, and other products.

Advantages and Characteristics

Prefabricated houses offer significant advantages such as shortened construction periods and reduced pollution. They adopt standardized design, factory production, assembly construction, information management, and intelligent applications, representing modern industrial production methods. By transferring a large amount of on-site work to factories, construction quality can be effectively controlled, reducing dust, noise, and other pollution during construction while improving labor productivity.

Development History

China's prefabricated concrete technology began in the 1950s, initially applied in factory and residential construction. In the 1970s, driven by the policy of building "three modernizations," technical systems such as large panel structures and box structures were formed. In the mid-1980s, development stalled due to cost and quality issues, but it recovered in the 21st century due to production efficiency and environmental advantages. Companies like Vanke Group have developed prefabricated shear wall residential structural systems and applied prefabricated frame technology in engineering projects.

Policy Support

In September 2016, the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Vigorously Developing Prefabricated Buildings" was issued, stating that developing prefabricated buildings is a major transformation in construction methods, beneficial for conserving resources and energy and reducing construction pollution. The document also identified the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations as key promotion areas. Additionally, by 2025, 80% of newly started prefabricated buildings in Hainan Province will be required, and starting in 2026, 100% of residential land sold in Guangzhou will implement prefabricated buildings.

Market Performance

Chinese-made prefabricated houses are selling well overseas. According to customs data, in the first four months of 2026, the Guangzhou Customs District exported 1.4 billion yuan worth of mobile homes, a year-on-year increase of 38.1%.