Word: prefab
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...1920s the prefab idea had seized the imagination of the great visionaries of 20th century architecture, though they approached the question with their usual indifference to public taste. The pioneer modernist Le Corbusier wrote a famous essay in praise of "Mass Production Houses." He just never got around to producing one. Geodesic-dome inventor Buckminster Fuller spent years tinkering with his Dymaxion House. But he insisted on making it circular and steel walled. Americans weren't ready for a house that looked like a flying saucer...
...merchandisers, not élite architects, who would be the first to exploit the potential of prefab, though mostly in traditional styles--Tudor, Cape Cod, bungalow--that would have made Le Corbusier fall on his protractor. As early as 1906, the Aladdin Company was mailing out factory-made Readi-Cut house kits of precut, numbered pieces. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck shipped out nearly 100,000 of its House by Mail kits. For a cost that varied between $650 and $2,500, the ambitious do-it-yourselfer received an avalanche of 30,000 pieces, including lumber, nails, shingles, windows, hardware...
After World War II, when many defense plants were repurposing, some turned to producing prefab wall systems--enameled-steel panels that not only were easy to clean but also allowed you to attach paintings to your walls with magnets. The Jetsons would have loved it. All the same, by the 1950s prefab was in decline. Mobile homes had emerged as the more popular low-cost alternative to stick-built housing. There are still dozens of modular-housing manufacturers in the U.S., but last year they produced just 36,000 of the more than 1.8 million new housing starts nationwide...
Younger architects know they have to fight a stigma attached to the whole idea of factory-made housing. "With a lot of people, when you say 'prefab,' they think of mobile homes," says Rocio Romero, an architect based in Perryville, Mo. "And the prefab homes of 30 years ago were made of cheaper materials. They weren't design oriented. They were reminiscent of trailer homes." Romero rocioromero.com has just begun to produce the LV House kit. With its generous windows and clean, simple lines, the LV House is reminiscent of Philip Johnson's famous Glass House in New Canaan, Conn...
...building lot and contractor assembly, the final figure for an LV House would be well below the $337,000 median price for new homes in the U.S., though at 1,150 sq. ft. it's also just over half the median size of a new American home. Prefab houses can be cheaper because plumbing and wiring are laid in at the factory, which eliminates the services of plumbers and electricians on-site. Because prefabs take less time to assemble on-site than conventional houses, there are also fewer weather delays and contractor cost overruns...