Winner: Rising Factory

Mace

Developed by Mace, the Rising Factory has the volume of the Tower of London, giving it the capacity and flexibility to construct any building with a floor plate within these dimensions. The product is a steel-framed structure with gantry cranes operating inside it, built around the parameters of a normal tower block footprint. The entire factory sits on four corner columns, with a special bracket fitted to each column and attached to the “factory” using 75mm bolts. A hydraulic jack sits above a small metal plate on top of the bracket, meaning the whole weight of the Rising Factory is held on about two inches of steel in each corner. Each jack can lift 300 tonnes. The factory eliminates the need for working outside the structure and enables cladding installation, one of the industry’s most hazardous processes, to be performed inside it.

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