Comparative analysis of modular construction practices in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore

Author links open overlay panelZhao Xu a, Tarek Zayed b, Yumin Niu a

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Abstract

Modular construction is considered as the future of the construction industry. While the sector is
growing rapidly in some areas, there are still barriers to overcome. For more than two decades, several
regions and countries, such as mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, were using
prefabricated/precast components to construct high-rise buildings in both private and public sectors.
Such practices suffered from several limitations, which warrant the need for modular construction.
Modular construction method needs to evolve so as to meet different regional requirements and
restrictions, namely regulations, economy, market and building types. But the regional requirements
and constraints on adopting modular construction remain unexplored. These differences are not widely
appreciated. Hence, this research aims to perform comparative analysis of modular construction
practices in terms of policies, specifications, and real projects in Hong Kong, Singapore, and mainland
China. The results of the comparative analysis indicate that Singapore has developed a relatively
effective policy system to help the construction industry embrace modular construction, while the three
regions have not issued authoritative specifications. In general, modular construction still needs more
support from the government, especially in terms of technical guidance and innovation. Cases studies
show that the sustainability performance of modular construction is not balanced in terms of the
economic, social and environmental dimensions. The lessons and challenges of modular construction
drawn from the cases are also summarized. The construction industry should work closely with the
government to achieve sustainable construction of modular building. The developed research on
modular construction will increase the understanding of common practices in close countries where the
industry in each can benefit from such practices to advance the domain.

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Introduction

For more than two decades, several countries and regions, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and mainland
China, were using prefabricated/precast components to construct high rise buildings in both private and
public sectors (Jaillon and Poon, 2009, Xu et al., 2015). The prefabricated/precast components improve
the quality and reduce waste and construction duration when compared to traditional construction
techniques (Jaillon and Poon, 2009 &2014;Li et al., 2014Abdul Rahim and Qureshi, 2019, Lu et al., 2018).

However, prefabricated/precast components face ineffective assembly management due to limited site
conditions, poor communication among project stakeholders, and technical issues. These technical
issues include water seepage from widows and bathrooms, improper connection and fittings between
prefabricated/precast components, inaccuracy of manufactured component sizes, and incompatibility of
design and the actual manufactured components (Li et al., 2016a&Li et al., 2016b, Tam et al., 2015,
Abdul Rahim and Qureshi, 2019).

Therefore, due to the above-mentioned limitations of the prefabricated/precast components, the

government and industry of Hong Kong and Singapore are lenient towards complete building modules
or elements, which are called MiC in Hong Kong or Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction
(PPVC) in Singapore. Modular construction can reduce the construction time and labor-intensive
activities, minimize disruption to the adjacent services, improve the quality and increase the
productivity as well as sustainability. Modular construction is gradually adopted as one of the significant
means to embrace productivity. At least 15 projects adopted PPVC in Singapore (Ho et al., 2019). Three
large-scale projects of modular construction have been completed and two projects are under
construction in mainland China. In Hong Kong, no modular building has not yet completed, but two
public projects have decided to pilot the MiC technology in response to the Policy Agenda.

Although some projects have already constructed by modular construction technology, modular
construction is still not the mainstream. On one hand, the popularity of modular construction is related
to the performance in real projects, and on the other hand, it depends on the government’s
implementation. The practices of government provide greatest impetus for the adoption of modular
construction. However, little literature attempted to explore practices covering both the government
and the construction industry. As a result, this research aims to perform comparative and content
analyses of modular construction in terms of practices, policies, developments, specifications, and real
case study projects in Hong Kong, Singapore, and mainland China. The government practices focus on
policies and specifications. Meanwhile, case studies analyze sustainability performance, technology
system, and challenges. Besides, this paper conducts a comparative study among Singapore, Hong Kong
and mainland China to explore regional requirements and challenges. Hence, this research can
contribute to improve the understating of practices in each country and advance the learning process.
Meanwhile, the lessons deprived from the practices of three regions can provide insightful
recommendation to close countries on the implementation of modular construction.
Section snippets

Literature review

Modular construction comprises prefabricated room-sized volumetric units that are normally fully fitted
out in manufacture and are installed on site as load-bearing ‘building blocks’ (Lawson et al., 2012). The
modules can broadly be classified into reinforced concrete, steel and wooden modules. The typical
reinforced concrete and steel modules are shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b).

Recently the modular construction has aroused wide attention from various countries. This widespread
interest could be

Research methodology

Based on the above comprehensive literature review, it was further found that the practices of modular
construction was kept unexplored particularly in Hong Kong and mainland China. This research intends
to explore modular construction practices including policies, specifications and case study projects. This
will enhance the understanding of modular construction practices and policies and assist in drawing
lessons from the international practices. The qualitative Content Analysis method, which

Policies

The policies of modular construction implementation are categorized into goal, control and regulation.
After identifying the related policies, economic incentives and support activities are described in detail.
Under each category, comparative analysis is conducted to identify gaps, overlaps or inconformity
among the three regions. The framework of this section is presented in Fig. 3 in which the economic
incentives discuss the subsidy, tax breaks, and award regulations. However, land supply

Analysis of case studies

The selected case studies include the fire services accommodation, student residences, and residential
building. The general information about 4 cases is presented in Table 4. Based on the results of the
literature review, the case studies will provide a comparative analysis focusing on the sustainable
construction, including economic, environmental and social dimensions. In addition, the technology
system and challenges will be analyzed and compared. Thus, some valuable lessons will be learned

Sustainable construction performance

The economic dimension of sustainable construction is primarily concerned with construction time and
cost (Kamali and Hewage, 2017). According to the case studies, the hoist speed was undoubtedly rapid.
However, modular construction needed longer preparation before construction. Additionally, the results
of the case studies reveal that the cost premium ranges from 15% to 20%. From economic perspective,
modular construction did not perform well as traditional construction method.

However, the

Conclusions

Modular construction has been improving constantly to make the modules better meet the specific
requirements of each project and region. This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis focusing on
modular construction practices among three regions, Hong Kong, Singapore and main land China.

The policies related to modular construction are further divided into four categories, namely goal,
control and regulation, economic incentives and supporting activities. Combined with the challenges

Acknowledgements

Financial supports from National Natural Science Foundation of China (71302138) and Priority Academic
Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (1105007002) in China are gratefully
acknowledged. This is also to acknowledge that the project leading to publication of this paper is
partially funded by the Hong Kong branch of the Chinese National Engineering Research Centre for Steel
Construction (CNERC), China.