October 2020

The Scariest (and Coolest) Modular Building Inventions

2024-11-13T19:15:34+00:00

Oh, the autumn season. Here come the ghouls, ghosts, zombies, monsters, and witches. Halloween is meant to be scary, so we’re bringing you some wildly interesting modular building feats and that just might keep you on your toes… and peeking around the next corner…

Take, for example, Zhang Yue, the infamous founder and chairman of Broad Sustainable Building based in China’s Hunan Province; and the 30-story building he built in FIFTEEEN days. In a classic interview with Zhang covered by Wired Magazine: “Traditional construction is chaotic,” he says. “We took construction and moved it into the factory.” According to Zhang, his buildings will help solve the many problems of the construction industry. They will be safer, quicker, and cheaper to build. And they will have low energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. When Wired asked Zhang why he decided to start a construction company, he responds “It’s not a construction company,” he says. “It’s a structural revolution.” (Watch the time lapse here.)

Of course, many assume that modular building is a fairly new invention, perhaps something that came into being during the 20^th century. Let modular.org enlighten us:

The origins of modular buildings date back to the 1600s. One of the first reported modular homes was brought to life by a colonial American fisherman who had recently moved from England and wanted a home built with trusted English construction methods. The solution to this was to have a disassembled home shipped by boat across the Atlantic Ocean.

In the 1800s, as the United States expanded westward, modular construction began to make a more prominent appearance. During the California Gold Rush, mining towns boomed, and as they flourished, a quick housing solution was needed. More than 500 preassembled homes were built in factories in New York and then shipped across the country to California.

But it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that the demand for modular homes started trending upwards. In 1897, E.F. Hodgson opened a manufacturing plant in Dover, Massachusetts which profited from the rapidly growing American population. The E.F Hodgson Company developed a catalog from which they sold modular homes across the country. Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward soon followed in their footsteps and http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/history.htm of modular homes over the next few decades. (Read full article on modular.org.)

Now what about indigenous cultures that sought suitable housing for their lifestyle and climate? Could we consider these modular? You be the judge:

For nomadic tribes that followed the buffalo, it was imperative that their entire village was able to pick up very quickly and move along to another location (sounds a bit like workforce housing, no?) These relocatable quarters, or teepees, were built using many long wooden poles for the frame, then tied together snug at the top and spread out wide at the ground, making an upside-down cone shape. After this frame was tested for sturdiness, a giant covering made from buffalo hides was placed over the structure. This process took around 30 minutes, making it an extremely efficient way to live.

As tribes migrated, each family in the village would carry along their own poles and hides, erecting teepees around 12-feet tall. After horses came into the picture, they started building them twice as tall. Modular buildings, delivered by horse!

What do you think? Could it be our counties’ original portable buildings were invented on America’s Great Plains?

The modular construction team at Aries has slain the many-headed hydra that is modular construction and turned the process into a tame, effective operation; but there are still many aspects of the business that are frighteningly impressive.

One is the insane adaptability of the modular buildings. Whether its mobile offices, storage containers, modular educational facilities, or workforce housing, every client is accompanied by a specialist whose job is to design the building’s specs that exactly match the client´s needs.

For example, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the country, many schools began requesting that their modular classrooms come designed for disease prevention. A team of seasoned experts sat down with our school clients to design choices and buildings solutions that would allow them to get their academic processes back on track. Soon after, from the Aries´s owned factory, brand new units with automatic doors, non-contact infrared thermometers, and wall-mounted hand sanitizer stations began rolling out. How terrifyingly efficient!

But customization is not the only “freaky,” scary thing about modular construction. For years, modular buildings have solved challenges, offered innovation to the building industry, and downright fascinated us with visual flair and new ways to look at construction. From modular skyscrapers, to ultra-modern architectural design and specialized medical units, the modular construction industry has applied its time-tested process in diverse fields.

The “scariest” aspect of all is just how fast the process can go from first contact to final delivery. Everything from hooking up power and energy to permit acquisition can be done at a blistering rate, sure to scare the socks off the competition.

So, this Halloween come be scared in all the right ways with a new modular building or modular office, designed and delivered for you!

ABOUT ARIES ꟷ At Aries, we believe there’s nothing more important than consistent delivery of exceptional service, dependability, and innovation. Aries promotes our philosophy of achieving together by learning from our clients, ensuring the development of mutually rewarding results and outcomes. All under Aries’ roof, we offer: design/build engineering, in-house manufacturing, an in-house transportation arm, construction services and general construction, civil work, land development, and capital/finance leasing.

Become a customer today! Visit Aries: www.ariesbuildings.com or call (U.S.) 1-888-598-8869. You can also contact us via our website.

Quality Modular Building and Service, from Sea to Shining Sea

catheryn2020-10-22T18:52:58+00:00

“We realize that our buildings are their image,” Richard “Dee” Stephens II states matter-of-factly, “our customers want portable office trailers to hold meetings in. They have owners, clients, and everyone else coming in.”

Richard and I are talking on the bleachers of a rodeo ring, the red dirt tossed around in piles after a day of competition. Even on a Saturday afternoon, with his friends and fellow competitors a few yards away, Richard finds time to sit down and talk about his work at Aries.

That attentiveness to his work, he states, is what sets him and Aries apart from the competition in modular offices. “It’s all about responsiveness. You must stay in front of the customer. They have to have confidence that we will get back to them in a timely manner and take care of whatever issues they may have.

Through facilitators such as Richard, Aries has become the preferred vendor for such prestigious companies as the NRP group, Southern Border Constructors, and Skybeck, amongst others.

“It’s the quality of the portable office trailers, and the fact that we still care about customer service. Biggest two things,” he says about the key to becoming a preferred provider.

The customers build a relationship of trust with Richard, their single point of contact for everything from design to delivery and pick-up, and this creates a harmonious workflow between the customers and Aries.

In another part of the country, Tom Pieper hits on the same notes. He handles portable office trailer deliveries across the central United States. When I call him, he is taking a break from doing some work on the ‘66 Mustang that he’s had since 1985.

For him, customer service starts with the first call. Tom listens to the customer’s needs, his experience guiding his questions. His goal is to help both him and the customer discover exactly what they need. By paying attention to the details, Tom helps craft and deliver a project exactly suited for each customer. The initial call begins a relationship that will continue throughout the process.

“The people at Aries have a good tenure in the industry, and are familiar with the process,” he answers when asked why Aries is superior to the competition. “And they have a single point of contact. With our competitors there will be at least 3-5 different people you have to speak with to get people on-site. It’s crazy. You call customer service and are on hold, waiting to talk to three or four different people, like a cable company. With us, it’s a direct line.”

For Aries, acquiring human resources with the talent and experience of Richard and Tom is a fundamental part of the business.

“When they were looking to hire me, they gave me a tour of their facility,” says Richard, “they had different units at different stages. I was able to see the work that went into them. I realized that the buildings were superior to others I had seen in the industry.”

The quality he found at Aries also convinced Tom to jump on board. The new equipment and the fact that Aries’ owns its factories, convinced him that the company was “moving in the right direction.”

This quality is no accident. At Aries, management believes that going the extra mile in manufacturing new buildings pays off, not just with the customer, but by attracting the best talent in the portable office trailer industry.

“These guys have seen it all. When you’re coordinating so many hands to get things delivered and set up, mishaps happen. Thankfully, our guys have enough experience to where they can foresee most obstacles. They understand that cutting corners in the portable building industry leads to buildings tipping over on the highway, no pun intended.”

In Texas, Richard goes back to talking to the other competitors about the day’s rodeo. Tom, finishes working on the Mustang for the day and prepares for a bike ride with his wife.

Neither of them, however, completely disconnect. In an industry where time and precision matter, they are both just a call away.

Tom Pieper services relocatable building delivery in the central United States region (Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Colorado) and can be reached at:

[email protected]

Cell: 816.776.9141

Richard “Dee” Stephens II concentrates on the south Texas region.
He can be reached at: [email protected]
Work: 830.243.8710
Cell: 210.323.6012

For all other inquires, from Sea to Shining Sea, Aries can be reached at 1-888-598-8869 or through their contact webpage.

ABOUT ARIES ꟷ Aries has offices and operates in all regions across the U.S., including the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Midwest, South Central, the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Canada. For this reason, Aries features its modular short- and long-term housing in several locations across North America.

Aries sells prefabricated office buildings to be used as construction offices, portable school classrooms, mobile hospitals, workforce housing at oil pipeline sites, storage containers, and for disaster recovery relief, but we’d love to help you buy one for any purpose at all! We offer full, turnkey solutions with exceptional customer service and robust financing options. We pride ourselves on combining product quality, design expertise, technical and financial innovation, and strategy that has already established us as a first choice to customers.

Become a customer today! Visit Aries: www.ariesbuildings.com, or call (U.S.) 1-888-598-8869. You can also contact us via our website, or request a quote here.