Prefabricated Integral Housing

Prefabricated integral housing mainly involves two forms: prefabricated assembled buildings and modular buildings, and also includes prefabricated panel houses, although the application of the latter has gradually decreased.

Prefabricated Assembled Buildings

Prefabricated assembled buildings are a form of construction where building components are industrially produced and then assembled on-site. Their technical systems encompass prefabricated concrete structures and steel structures, with component types including prefabricated products such as beams, slabs, walls, and columns. This form of construction offers advantages such as shortened construction periods and reduced pollution. Depending on the method of component combination, prefabricated assembled buildings can be classified into the following types:

• Panel-assembled: Using prefabricated wall panels and floor slabs as core components, the building's main structure is formed through on-site assembly. Its advantage lies in expanding indoor usable area, but design flexibility is relatively limited, making it suitable for highly standardized residential or public buildings.
• Box-assembled: By combining prefabricated functional units (such as independent room modules), construction speed can be increased by 50%-70%. However, this type of building places high demands on transportation and lifting equipment, requiring the integrity of modules to be ensured during transportation, and is suitable for low- to medium-rise buildings or temporary facilities.
• Frame-assembled: Using prefabricated frame structures (such as beams and columns) as supports, wall panels, floor slabs, and other components are installed on-site. It offers strong structural stability and is suitable for high-rise buildings or scenarios with high seismic performance requirements.

Modular Buildings

Modular buildings represent a higher level of integration within prefabricated assembled buildings, breaking down the building into independent modules (such as room or corridor units). These modules undergo full-process prefabrication in factories, including structure, decoration, and plumbing and electrical systems, and are then transported to the site for assembly. Their core advantages include:

• Short construction period: The construction cycle can be shortened by more than 60%. For example, a public housing project in Shenzhen, Guangdong, used 6,028 concrete modules for assembly, reducing the completion time from 2.5-3 years to 1 year.
• Controllable quality: Factory production reduces on-site construction errors, ensuring uniform building quality.
• Energy-saving and environmentally friendly: Reducing on-site wet operations lowers dust and noise pollution, and material utilization is increased by approximately 20%.
• Convenient maintenance: Standardized connections between modules facilitate later maintenance or functional upgrades.

Prefabricated Panel Houses

Prefabricated panel houses use factory-prefabricated cement components (solid or hollow prefabricated panels) as the main load-bearing or enclosing structures. With the development of building technology, their limitations have gradually become apparent: poor overall integrity, weak seismic performance, and low design flexibility. Currently, cast-in-place concrete and prefabricated buildings have gradually replaced traditional prefabricated panel houses, which are now only used in temporary buildings or specific historical projects.