Prefabricated housing used to be a dirty word in the housing business. Today, many designer prefab houses are an affordable and elegant solution -- maybe even the "holy grail of modernism".
"Prefabricated construction is a term for parts of buildings that are manufactured off-site, from roof sections to entire multiroom dwellings, in standard sizes and shipped for assembly elsewhere.
...Prefab can be a dirty word, suggesting temporary disaster-zone structures and the Shady Lane Trailer Park. Kaufmann, who trained for five years with Frank Gehry before starting her own firm, wants to ditch the downscale connotation by bringing quality, customization, and craftsmanship to factory-built homes. Modern prefabs, she believes, can be more Mies than mobile home.
The prefab trend is already getting some attention in museum circles. In May, Kaufmann's Glidehouse will be featured in an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Her Breezehouse is currently on display in an architecture show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
...For the past century, the idea that a factory could produce a house more efficiently and cheaply than carpenters has been a recurring dream - what Lazor calls "the holy grail of modernism." In the 1930s, Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius pushed his vision of prefab, a packaged house that arrives at your lot, and he was hardly alone. Architectural historian Colin Davies notes that by the end of World War II, there were more than 200,000 prefab homes in place, made by more than 70 companies. At midcentury, the American landscape was filled with prefab, from the kit abodes sold by Sears' Modern Home department to Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes to the steel-paneled Lustron homes created by - you guessed it - a manufacturer of steel paneling. Even today, luxury developers like Toll Brothers ship entire sections of semicustom homes to building sites."
FULL STORY: Some Assembly Required
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.