»Carmel Place« is a residential high-rise building in Manhattan and New York’s first to feature »micro-apartments«. It was built with the goal of offering affordable homes to singles who have difficulty in finding apartments in the city due to the the extremely high demand for housing. In 2013 the city held a competition based on the idea of creating a pilot project for micro homes. Their floor area was intended to be significantly smaller than the typical 400 square feet (roughly 37 square metres).
The participating teams were required to submit an economic solution based on the cooperation between project developers, architects and brokers. The winning team developed a nine-storey high-rise building with 55 dwelling units ranging from 255 to 360 square feet in size (which roughly equals 24–33 square metres). For this project, prefabricated steel frame modules were chosen – for a number of reasons.
For one, the project developer has significant experience in construction with prefabricated elements and also runs a firm that can produce them. In addition, the repetitive use of standard details enabled saving both costs and time. The delivery, assembly and welding of the modules, almost ready for occupancy upon arrival on site, only lasted four weeks. As a result, negative influences on the neighbourhood due to noise and pollution were kept to a minimum. The assembly of the brick curtain wall facade and the completion of the interior finishes occurred at the same time. Fire protective coating and sealing of steel frames mostly took place in the workshop.
The participating teams were required to submit an economic solution based on the cooperation between project developers, architects and brokers. The winning team developed a nine-storey high-rise building with 55 dwelling units ranging from 255 to 360 square feet in size (which roughly equals 24–33 square metres). For this project, prefabricated steel frame modules were chosen – for a number of reasons.
For one, the project developer has significant experience in construction with prefabricated elements and also runs a firm that can produce them. In addition, the repetitive use of standard details enabled saving both costs and time. The delivery, assembly and welding of the modules, almost ready for occupancy upon arrival on site, only lasted four weeks. As a result, negative influences on the neighbourhood due to noise and pollution were kept to a minimum. The assembly of the brick curtain wall facade and the completion of the interior finishes occurred at the same time. Fire protective coating and sealing of steel frames mostly took place in the workshop.