World's Largest Prefab Building Might Come To Atlantic Yards

More controversy today over Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards as the New York Times reveals that Bruce Ratner is planning on constructing the world's tallest prefabricated building, at 34 stories, in order to save money and cut labor costs in half.

The building, the first slotted for construction in the 16-building and future Brooklyn Nets arena megaproject, would be built by constructing 900 modules that would then be stacked and bolted together, creating 400 new affordable housing units- part of Ratner's promise that 30 percent of the 6,000 new apartments will be reserved for low- to middle-income residents (the Times has a graphic showing what this would look like).

Ratner, under pressure from affordable housing advocates and attempting to meet an array of strict financial deadlines, is looking for a way to streamline the project. And if this video from China is any indication, the prefab option certainly seems like it might be the quickest.

However, constructing it this way also greatly reduces the number of new jobs- and creating new jobs was one Ratner's biggest selling points for the Atlantic Yards project in the first place.

Others are also concerned that the prefab option may not be quite as pretty as Frank Gehry's original design.

This is the latest in a long series of issues over the construction of the Atlantic Yards, such as this, this, this, this, or this.