Abstract: A life cycle analysis with quantitate and qualitive analysis is made to compare the comprehen-sive benefits of prefabricated buildings and traditional cast-in-situ buildings to achieve sustainable development of buildings with economic , environmental, social and other benefits. lt is found that the cost of pre-fabricated buildings increases compared with that of cast-in-situ buildings , in which the cost of constructionand installation increases the most, which is result of the increasing price of components. Due to the inte-gration of design-production-construction of prefabricated buildings , the product quality is good and com-fortable, and the operation and maintenance cost is lower than that of cast-in-buildings. However, the re-covery value of neither mode is high. It can be concluded that prefabricated buildings are better with eco-nomic, environmentaland social benefits, which could give insight to green construction.

Key words: prefabricated buildings , life cycle, comprehensive benefits