Foldable building units

Abstract

Prefabricated foldable building units are described that have one or more of the following advantages. They are more easily prefabricated, more easily transported to building sites without requiring special permits, unloadable and unfoldable at the building sites without using cranes (they can be unloaded using ground-level lifting rigs and unfolded using, for example, a cable mechanism), allow precise and fast completion at the building site, and allow significant reduction in the scope of work to be completed on-site, where costs and scheduling are far less manageable. Further, methods for unloading and unfolding foldable building units are described that obviate the need for one or more cranes that can be expensive and project-complicating, thereby opening up a significant percentage of building sites for placement of prefabricated foldable building units.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 245,162, filed Sep. 23, 2009, U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 371,524 filed Aug. 6, 2010, U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 371,540, filed Aug. 6, 2010 and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 371,513, filed Aug. 6, 2010. The entire teachings of the above applications are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Architectural structures, particularly residential buildings, are typically built on-site with each stage of the building process requiring to transport necessary materials and specific skilled labor to the site. The inherent cost inefficiency of this approach is well known in the art.[0003]Thus, alternative approaches have been described aimed at providing economically priced housing. Some of these alternatives included prefabricating various parts of a building at a central facility, transporting the parts to a building site and then completing...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0020]The foldable building units of the present invention have one or more of the following advantages. They are more easily prefabricated, allow more flexibility in building shapes including higher ceilings and larger spaces, reduce or eliminate material damage due to, for example, shipment, structural deflection, thermal flexure and contraction, and structural aging, more easily transportable to building sites without requiring special permits, unloadable and unfoldable at the building sites often without using cranes (they can be unloaded using ground-level lifting rigs and unfolded using, for example, a cable mechanism) and allow significant reduction and increased speed of work to be completed on-site, where typically costs and scheduling are far less manageable.

[0021]Additionally, as mentioned above, the methods for unloading and unfolding foldable building units of the present invention can obviate the need for cranes that can be expensive and project-complicating, thereby opening up a significant percentage of building sites for placement of prefabricated foldable building units.

Problems solved by technology

The inherent cost inefficiency of this approach is well known in the art.

However, it has been described that for a number of reasons, the installation cost of prefabricated non-foldable building units was substantial and, when added to the cost of manufacture and delivery, caused the total cost of these prefabricated non-foldable building units to rise to levels detrimental for competition with conventional construction.

They require substantial work at the building site, substantial time for finishing at the building site, they are difficult to prefabricate, they do not allow precise unfolding and finishing at the building site, and they require cranes for unloading and unfolding at the building site.

Cranes can be very expensive to employ, difficult to schedule, and are not even suitable for a significant percentage of building sites, thus, excluding these building sites for a substantial number of prefabricated foldable building units and often requiring home owners or developers of respective building sites to use conventional construction.

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