Pensieri di un lunatico minore

Cool modular housing

I’ve been a huge fan of modular, pre-fab housing for years, and recently Dwell Magazine has started discussing more and more of it. In the future, I think that pre-fab offers a couple of opportunities that we don’t have with the centuries-old stick construction technique that dominates in the current climate. Now, there is some focus on pre-fab for the most expensive parts of a house: kitchen and bath.

First, pre-fab offers the ability for substantially higher quality materials at a lower cost. For example, by assembling pieces of a house in a controlled atmosphere (i.e. a factory v. rainy outdoors), you can control the bonding of various elements. In addition, by using larger tools and jigs to cut and form things, you can make sure that the things are repeatable.

Second, by manufacturing in larger volume at once, you can make sure that things are “right” the first time. Most problems I’ve seen in construction stem from the ad-hoc nature of construction. Even when it’s two identical floor-plans, the walls are in slightly (sometimes as much as 6-8”) different locations.

People need to stop thinking of pre-fab as a “mobile home,” because it’s not. Take a look at what Deck House has been doing for decades. Their houses are better made and more desirable than any stick-built home around.

[via Steve Dekorte]