The Return Of The 'Housing Kit' -- With A Twist

Star architects are changing the perception of prefabricated housing into a hot new market. You can get a designer-made house, including land for under $300,000.

1 minute read

September 8, 2004, 1:00 PM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"Forget boxes on wheels and tacky subdivisions. Prefab is now just plain fab... Once the poor stepchild of residential construction, so-called systems-built housing is now the province of topflight architects, who are reinventing the genre with innovative designs, new building components and environmentally friendly approaches.

...Inspired by the Sears, Roebuck mail-order homes that sprang up in the early 1900s, "designer prefab" spans a number of highly nuanced and often confounding housing categories. Variously described as systems-built, modular, panelized, kit or manufactured, prefab homes are constructed at least partially in factories before being transported to building sites."

Thanks to ArchNewsNow

FULL STORY: Prefab Rehab

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 in Time

Architecture United States

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