I am unfamiliar with the paneláky, but I would be surprised if they were built at a comparable speed. While I am aware of large building shells which have been constructed on this sort of timescale, they still required many months/years of fit-out afterwards (plumbing, electricity, fine interior finishing). what is unique about what Broad Group is doing is that they are assembling fully fitted-out modules, which are essentially ready for move-in the day after construction is complete. The only historical analogues I'm aware of are things like Moshe Safde's Habitat 67[1] and some Japanese "metabolist" buildings.[2] But those have been architectural experiments without any real financial viability. What Broad Group is doing is unique in that they are making it commercially viable at scale.
In the article they mentioned the issue of leaks.I read about it in another piece about an American pre-fab building, where it has been a huge problem.
What do you think about that issue ? how can it be solved ?
These paneláky were built at some scale in Czech Republic too. They're a little grim normally, but quite a lot get painted in nice pastel colours so many look quite pretty sometimes. I stayed in one in Brno for a while, the walls are paper thin so I had a very ... intimate knowledge of what my neighbours were up to (our bedrooms were adjacent, as were the bathrooms) and vice versa :)
I don't mind them so much tbh. It's pretty surprising how similar they can be though, I saw that picture and thought "that looks like my girlfriend's parent's place in Prievidza"
They all look similar because they are all constructed from the same pre-fabricated panels, like this Chinese building. The interesting thing to me is seeing the slow change of the designs over time. In Puchov they have about four series of designs. Fifty buildings but all one of the four basic designs.
