New housing concept with precast concrete elements for Brazil‘s middle class

It is certainly one of the most ambitious construction projects in Brazil in recent times. Ecoparque Bairros Integrados is a vision that focuses on sustainable urban development and aims to create affordable, livable housing for millions of Brazilians without neglecting ecological and social aspects. The first residential project of this kind is now being built in Cascavel in the west of the state of Paraná. The first residents are due to move in 2025.

There is currently an estimated shortage of six to seven million homes in Brazil. Housing that is urgently needed. With the expansion of the current Brazilian government‘s housing program „Minha Casa, Minha Vida“ (My House, My Life), housing for low-income Brazilians is to be subsidized, particularly in centrally located urban areas. The aim is to build two million new social housing units by 2026.

„With Ecoparque Bairros Integrados, we have the vision of creating a new Brazil with affordable housing for millions of people,“ explains Francisco Simeão, Managing Director of the Brazilian property and real estate developer Ecoparque. „It‘s actually about much more than just housing. We are creating livable urban areas surrounded by green parks, forests and water. Our kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, attractive shopping and leisure facilities as well as a sustainable, sustainable energy supply via solar power and our local water supply offer the ideal conditions for the start of a new era in the construction industry in Brazil.“

Brazil‘s construction industry on the way to a new era

The first urban development project of its kind in the west of the state of Paraná is now being built in Cascavel. The location was chosen deliberately. Just 10 minutes from the city center, the new Ecoparque Cascavel district is easily accessible via the BR-277 highway or the Regional West Airport, which is only 2 kilometers away. On an area of almost one million square meters, more than 50% of which is green space, a total of 4,600 apartments will be built in 15-storey residential buildings, which only take up 3% of the total area. „These will be exclusive residential blocks with high-quality, fully furnished 2- and 3-bedroom apartments and suites ranging from 96 sqm to 160 sqm,“ explains Silvana Fagundes, Engineering Manager at Ecoparque. „A high quality of life for the residents is our maxim,“ says Silvana. „To achieve this, we offer modern architecture and a special feel-good atmosphere. The different districts are connected by ecological open spaces and many green areas, which creates space for a special coexistence and social integration.“ To make the dream of home ownership a reality in an affordable and simple way, the apartments are also financed by Caixa Econômica Federal as part of the Minha Casa, Minha Vida housing program.

In order to realize such mega construction projects in the future, it will also be necessary to break new ground in the construction system. „Prefabricated construction is widespread in Europe and is now the leading method. The industrial pre-production of walls and floors is not only characterized by very good energy efficiency values, but also guarantees consistently high construction standards and lower construction costs compared to conventional construction systems with significantly shorter construction times,“ explains Wesley Gomes, Managing Director of Vollert do Brasil. „In Brazil, however, the percentage of this construction method for residential buildings is currently still very low. There are certainly many reasons for this, but awareness of this new form of construction is currently growing. Ecoparque is certainly a pioneer in the Brazilian construction industry. Words are now being followed by deeds.“

Intensive planning phase leads to project breakthrough

Ecoparque has intensively studied the topic of building systems, examined and analyzed construction projects worldwide and consulted intensively with Brazil‘s leading experts and construction engineers. Ecoparque Bairros Integrados is designed as a sustainable vision. In the medium term, numerous districts like the one to be built in Cascavel are to be created throughout Brazil and Europe. „Individual residential buildings like the one in Cascavel with 15 to 20 residential floors must be completed in less than 180 days in order to be successfully scaled in the long term,“ explains Ivan Barbosa, Construction Manager at Ecoparque. „And with the most resource-efficient use of concrete and steel materials possible.“ A decisive success factor here is the local, industrial pre-production of the construction elements with a consistently high-quality standard, regardless of wind and weather and possible construction defects on the building site.

„When Ecoparque approached us in May 2021, our vision for a construction system for the Brazil of tomorrow immediately grabbed us,“ says Wesley Gomes. „We are one of the world‘s leading plant specialists in the precast concrete industry, but thanks to our experienced civil engineers in Germany and Brazil, we also have extensive expertise in the development and implementation of construction systems for our customers, always adapted to the local conditions on site.“

„The Ecoparque Cascavel urban development project is the first pilot project in Brazil. Through strong partnerships and a bold expansion plan, such urban construction projects will gradually emerge across the country,“ explains Silvana Fagundes from Ecoparque. „Together with Vollert, we have developed a future-proof, scalable construction system for this purpose. In collaboration with Ecoparque‘s construction engineers, 3D models of residential buildings and construction elements were designed, adapted to Brazilian construction standards and specifications and discussed in detail. „It was crucial for a viable concept that the walls and floors were produced locally and in the immediate vicinity of the new district in Cascavel.“ BIM models of the future residential buildings were created, extensive profitability and ROI calculations were made, and various production technology concepts were discussed, weighing up the pros and cons of each. The project breakthrough came at the end of 2021 and the final decison was made in favor of Vollert as the technology and system supplier. „The chemistry was right from the start,“ says Wesley Gomes from Vollert.

The largest precast concrete plant in America is being built

Ecoparque Bairros Integrados works with a revolutionary construction system for Brazil consisting of prefabricated floors and double walls as well as solid concrete elements for the interior walls. „The building elements of the apartments are delivered prefabricated by the construction factory, including stairs and bathrooms, and assembled on site like Lego bricks, which significantly speeds up the construction process,“ explains Guilherme Zandona, Factory Manager at Ecoparque. „We also work sustainably by reducing material waste and using concrete and steel with maximum resource efficiency, ultimately significantly reducing the CO₂ footprint.“

Ambitious targets have been set for the first Ecoparque Cascavel urban development project. The first apartments are to be handed over to the new owners during 2025. The first precast concrete plant at the heart of the new construction concept was built directly at the new district area. „The entire plant concept is highly robotized and uses only the latest machine technology and efficient processes. Together with the project managers at Ecoparque, we developed and presented a turnkey plant design for this purpose, designed to meet the planned output capacities for the timely completion of the Ecoparque construction project in Cascavel,“ explains Philippe Marrié, the responsible project manager for sales at Vollert in Germany. Depending on the apartment designs, precast elements for up to 3,900 apartments per year can be produced in the future. All important data on the walls and floors to be produced will flow directly into the production processes and into the preliminary planning of the construction site processes. In addition, the BIM construction details are accessible at all times on a digital data platform for architects, structural engineers and electrical engineers.

Plant dimension sets new standards in America

The planning and supply of equipment for this state-of-the-art plant was provided by a consortium of European suppliers, including Vollert, SAA, mbk, MCT, and Ratec.

„The dimensions of the new precast concrete plant in Casvacel with 200,000 square meters of floor space are gigantic and certainly a first in Brazil‘s construction industry,“ says Philippe Marrié. Fully automated processes ensure that it is now the largest precast concrete plant in Brazil and Americas, with annual output capacities of more than 1,000,000 square meters of wall and floor area. Particular attention is paid to the concreting, compaction and curing processes as well as the fully automated shuttering process. „With the Smart Set line, we offer state-of-the-art CAD/CAM-controlled robot technology for this,“ explains An-tonios Fischer, the responsible project manager at Vollert. The Smart Set shuttering robot system is a latest-generation multifunctional robot that combines innovative technology with high travel speed and acceleration. On the Smart Set robot line at Ecoparque, the shuttering profiles are positioned under CAD/CAM control depending on the respective wall or floor type and, if required, the contours for built-in parts and reinforcement components are pre-plotted. A Smart Store storage robot takes over the intermediate storage of the cleaned shuttering profiles in the storage magazines or removes them to the feed line for the next shuttering process.

CAD-based steel mesh as well as the lattice girders are prepared using a reinforcement solution from mbk. This is done using highly automated welding machines with maximum short changeover times. Built-in parts such as sockets or window frames as well as the reinforcement supplement are placed manually. A fully automatic, bridge-guided Smart Cast concrete spreader ensures optimum concrete cycle times and precise concrete dosing,“ explains Antonios Fischer. The concrete is spread using a spiked roller/slider design. The discharge volume and the spiked roller speed can be optimally adjusted to different concrete consistencies using frequency control. Hydraulically actuated flat slide gates cut out the area where no concrete is to be discharged. The discharge width can be optimally adjusted to different concrete types and consistencies (normal concrete, lightweight concrete, etc.) using the slide width adjustment.

The low-frequency compaction of the concrete with the Vario Compact shaking station achieves both a very good surface finish on the visible side of the floor slabs and efficient compaction of the upper shell of the double walls and the solid walls. Depending on the weight, the imbalances are synchronized differently, which enables an optimum, circular vibration movement with low noise levels. In addition, a high-frequency vibration station compacts the concrete in the more heavily reinforced load-bearing shell of the double wall and the solid walls, if necessary. The vibration energy of the external vibrators is transferred to the pallet surface via the roller blocks. A ceiling-guided Vario Store storage and retrieval machine takes over the fully automatic storage and retrieval of the freshly concreted floor and wall elements in the fully insulated and heated curing chamber. The Vario Cure curing chamber consists of four clad rack towers, each with 15 pallet compartments.

For an even more aesthetic exposed concrete surface, the freshly concreted solid walls move into the finishing area. A Smart Smooth bridge-type power trowel moves in longitudinal and transverse directions and ensures a smooth surface. This is ensured by an electrically driven smoothing head with blade adjustment and variably adjustable rotation speeds. In double-wall production, a stationary Vario Turn pallet turning device ensures a simple, semi-automatic turning process and particularly ergonomic workflows.

„Everything was designed very efficiently and economically,“ continues Antonios Fischer from Vollert. „This also applies to the loading technology for transporting the precast concrete elements to the construction site.“ The wall elements are first set up vertically using a Vario Tilt tilting station. „To avoid creating a bottleneck here, where individual walls would cause a backlog, we have installed two tipping stations in different bays. Depending on the workload, one of these can be approached,“ explains Antonios Fischer.

As the chosen provider - selected by Vollert - of the formwork equipment, Ratec supplied the robot-compatible formwork systems for solid elements (SAS Standard Automatic Shuttering) as well as the established system for girder slabs and double walls (RT U60 Pro), both standard solutions for automated production using shuttering robots. Jürgen Deppe, Director of Ratec SLU, had the opportunity to attend to the grand opening of the facility in February 2024: „We are proud to be part of this groundbreaking project and to contribute to one of Brazil‘s most modern precast concrete plants.“

Smart Factory concept with ITWO MES control system

Ecoparque relies on a modern Industry 4.0 concept to control all processes optimally and economically. „Similar to a digital factory, the machines communicate intelligently with each other via digital data flows. We first receive the architectural data for the residential buildings virtually in constructive 3D BIM models from Nemetschek‘s Allplan system software, before production takes place in series production with innovative CAD/CAM robotics and a high degree of automation. Optimum exchange and transfer of relevant information regarding drawings, material stocks, inventories and logistics are of great importance,“ explains Guilherme from Ecoparque. The intelligent ITWO MES production system from automation specialist RIB SAA Software Engineering is used for this purpose. In a smart factory like this one in Cascavel, all processes and machines are fully digitally controlled and monitored.

Nationwide expansion throughout Brazil

„Even today, 3 months after the first walls and floors were produced, we can already see the high construction quality that we will achieve with the new construction system in the urban development project in Cascavel,“ summarizes Ivan Barbosa from Ecoparque. After the contract was awarded, Vollert‘s civil engineers continued to be fully involved in the course of the project. There was a comprehensive, permanent transfer of technology and knowledge with Ecoparque. A specialized team from Vollert was permanently on site to monitor the installation and commissioning phase. An experienced expert was also on site in Cascavel to monitor production and quality assurance after the start of production and during the following months. „These issues were certainly a decisive factor in why we chose the right technology partner in Vollert,“ summarizes Silvana Fagundes from Ecoparque.

Ecoparque Bairros Integrados is a model and example of holistic and sustainable urban development that integrates ecological, social and economic aspects to create a livable and environmentally friendly city. Following the successful pilot project in Cascavel, expansion to other regions of Brazil is now on the agenda. „We have created a blueprint for how we can design sustainable, affordable housing for millions of Brazilians. We will now pursue this vision intensively,“ says Managing Director Francisco Simeão.