Prestige prefab
From Sanctuary magazine issue 9. Buy or subscribe.
Toby Horrocks
Modscape have been selling prefabricated houses for three years and sits proudly at the prestige end of the market. “We are not just about meeting the minimum,” says director Jan Gyrn.
“We start with a pretty serious welded steel frame. It is seriously over-designed when it ends up at its destination.” The Modscape steel frame makes the houses robust and portable. Frames get an instant cyclone rating and can stack as high as six or seven storeys. The frames can also cantilever (overhang) two or three metres without needing a supporting column. Their standard footing is a steel screw pile, which minimises site disruption and doesn’t need any concrete or termite treatment.
The walls, floor and ceiling of Modscape houses comprise two metal skins with a high-density polystyrene core for insulation. The polystyrene compensates for one of the main drawbacks of lightweight construction – low insulation values – but does pose the problem of waste and recyclability. Jan Gyrn says Modscape have gotten around this by sending waste polystyrene to China, to come back as plastic chairs.
North and west walls are designed with an air gap for additional insulation, and the gap doubles as a recess for north-facing sliding glass doors. The resulting R values are impressive: the roof is R5.7, walls are R3.7, and the floor is R2.5.
The Merricks house was delivered with 13 trucks and 25 workers; 13 hours later it was fully installed, with services connected the next day. The homeowners were delighted.
“We’d done big renovations before, and the savings in time, effort and hassle with prefabrication are amazing.”
