Resiliency of Prefabricated Daycares and Schools: Finnish Perspective to Relocatable Education Facilities

Abstract

The industrialised production of prefabricated daycare and school properties offer flexible alternatives for communities for provision of communal services. The paper investigates architectural qualities and financial solutions for rentable and relocatable education facilities in finland. in particular, the focus is on the communal interests in solving the property management with a portfolio of rentable facilities for different time spans ranging from very short term to periods up to over twenty years. The short term rental terms offer solutions for disaster mitigation such as flooding but also spaces during refurbishment of existing buildings, e.g. due to moisture and mould damage. A core issue is a potential sustainable and flexible co-existence of both permanent and flexible modules that can adapt, for example to demographic changes, improving the efficiency of communal property manage­ment. Thus the prefabricated solutions have a potential, if the architectural quality is high enough, to provide alternatives for the real estate strategies of cities also in longer term provision of daycare and school facilities.

User-centric work environments in modular healthcare facilities

“…According to the interviews the main drawbacks in the modular buildings were long and narrow corridors, incorrect-sized spaces, and defects in room temperature and soundproofing. Similar results have also been identified in earlier studies (Da Rocha et al 2015;Doran et al 2011 andEdelman et al 2016). This knowledge can be utilized in further design of modular relocatable laborarories and health care units like emergency medical care, mobile clinical units and up to redeployable trauma centers, which also Verderber (2015) mention in his book Innovations in Transportable Healthcare Architecture as suitable modular solutions globally.…”

Embodying circularity through usable relocatable modular buildings

“…Vihola et al (2016), focus on the lifecycle costing of the modular buildings, and find the leasing alternative to be beneficial to the client in case the facility is operational less than 40 years. Finally, Edelman et al (2016) notes the poor image associated with temporary nature of the relocatable modular buildings is often a concern to the clients. In this initial framework, key benefits comprise the rapidity in delivering and assembling the modules, quality derived from standardization, as well as sustainability, mainly derived from resource efficiency.…”

“…In addition to the general literature on modular buildings and their prefabrication, two previous studies from Finland address the business model of leasing relocatable modular buildings. These two studies find modular buildings to be inherently adaptable as they are leased for a certain period and may be reused in same or new combination of modular buildings in another location (Edelman et al , 2016; Vihola and Edelman, 2016). Adaptability is an important property in buildings, as it is a way to avoid early obsolescence, and therefore promote sustainability (Arge, 2005).…”

“…In addition to the challenges posed by the paradigm of ownership, modular buildings suffer from a poor reputation when it comes to aesthetic architectural quality. Based on previous literature, a monotonous design and rigidness results from factory manufacturing and the transport of the modules (Da Rocha et al , 2015; Edelman et al , 2016). Prefabricated modules are indeed restricted in height, width and length and bearing capacity (Doran and Giannakis, 2011; Edelman et al , 2016), which set limits to architectural design.…”

“…Based on previous literature, a monotonous design and rigidness results from factory manufacturing and the transport of the modules (Da Rocha et al , 2015; Edelman et al , 2016). Prefabricated modules are indeed restricted in height, width and length and bearing capacity (Doran and Giannakis, 2011; Edelman et al , 2016), which set limits to architectural design. On the other hand, as Brand (1994) suggested, already two decades ago, a simple design allows for adaptability during the building’s lifecycle, and should therefore be valued over architectural quality.…”