Vertikal (471-481 King St E) | 23 & 19 fl | U/C

[dtkvictim]

Somebody should tell Drewlo about this. 
10-storey residential building in China constructed in a day

While I get the joke, it is a fair point that it's not really one day because of all the factory time.

That said, I really do think the way we build is clearly antiquated. It's no wonder construction is so expensive when every item is a custom on-site production. If you tried to build cars that way they'd also be beyond the means of most people. Someday someone will figure out a business model that works for standardized prefabricated major building components.

I don't think the disconnect here is in the construction industry (or at least not exclusively). Suburban developers like Mattamy, while not prefab, take a repeatable factory like approach and build a ton of housing fast.

The problem is that applying this approach the denser forms of housing causes political issues. You need, what, probably at least 10+ mid- to high-rise buildings to have efficiency gains? Good luck finding approval to build that many nearly identical buildings back-to-back or in parallel. Whereas getting approval for hundreds of suburban houses at once hasn't historically been an issue.