Post-and-beam construction—where workers (and robots) build hundreds of two-by-four stick-framed houses in factories—could be a secret weapon in solving Australia’s housing crisis, according to one of Japan’s largest timber fabricators, who presented at Timber Construct yesterday.
Addressing 200 of the country’s leading timber engineers, architects and developers, Yuichi Shinohara, managing director of the Shinohara Group, and Shingi Tarirah, the firm’s structural coordinator, demonstrated a proprietary “click-and-set” system that lets the multi‑generational timber fabricator — responsible for turning out more than 4,000 house frames every year — dramatically accelerate on-site assembly and scaling up offsite production.
“Pre-cut (or prefabrication) construction cuts manufacturing house frames from more than 40 days to just 1.5 days,” Shinohara told the conference, with “on-site installers click 100 square metre houses into place like Ikea furniture, with all on-site activities wrapped up in just two days!”
Off stage, Wood Central’s Jason Ross, MC for the two-day conference, spoke to Shinohara and Tariarah, who said its “pre-cut” model could be an ideal solution for the Australian building and construction industry: “It’s highly efficient and much safer than other methods,” said Tariarah, with Shinohara revealing the company is “now open to working with the supply chain to see if the technology could be used here in Australia.”
And the timing couldn’t be any better, with RBA governor Michele Bullock warning last week that supply (or lack thereof) remains the key driver in skyrocketing house prices and rentals. Appearing before a Senate hearing in Canberra, Bullock discussed housing supply, inflation, and interest rates while facing questions from the economics committee. “The issue with the housing market is supply and demand – we have demand for housing that outstrips the supply of housing, and it’s occurring both in housing prices and rents,” she said. “There’s more demand for rental properties than there are rentals available.”
Bullock said that whilst the government was working to address housing shortages more needed to be done: “We’ve got to get supply of housing moving,” she said. “My observations, certainly living in New South Wales, is the governments are trying very hard. But it involves planning, it involves construction and a whole series of other things governments are looking at, and I encourage them to keep looking at.”
- To learn more about Japan’s 2×4 “pre-cut” housing model and whether it is a solution for Australia, click here for Wood Central’s exclusive coverage from inside a Japanese “factory builder” earlier this year.
