New housing manufacturing system tried at TND

New Town Builders of Denver, Colorado, is testing a new manufacturing system for houses in traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) that the company hopes will reduce defects, cut costs by 20 percent, and reduce construction time by up to 75 percent.
The system, developed by Cohen Brothers Homes of Denver, involves building a 30,000 sq. ft., 52-foot-high, prefabricated structure on the site of the future community. Within this structure, 30 to 40 employees will assemble houses, five at a time. At first the process will take about a month per home, but Cohen Brothers believes cycle time could be reduced to two weeks when kinks in the production are worked out. Once each 30- to 50-ton  house is completed in this weather-protected setting, it is trucked over private streets to the lot where it will permanently stand. Cohen Brothers, a long-time commercial contractor in Denver, created the system and won the 2001 Innovative Housing Technology Award from the NAHB Research Center and Popular Science magazine, but this is the first time the system has been put in place in a development.

Prototype project
Known as the Whole-House Building System (WHBS), it is now being tried at Tollgate Crossing, a

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