Prefabricate Your Life

Prefabricate Your Life 
By: Brad Hoepfner 
        Today in architecture the notion of prefabricated or modular homes has become a common thought. The driving forces that are behind modular homes are convenience, affordability, and quick erection. Initially, modular units were mainly used and known for jails, barracks, and cheap motels so the most people did not want to live in this type of home. Now, small homes, hotels, and large apartment buildings are being erected using these methods and saving the owners a large sum of money. These options are starting to allow low income families an opportunity to live in these dwellings. These ideas are currently pushing my studio project but they also could affect my disaster relief housing and planning thesis next semester. So to start my search at looking into these types of homes I went to google to see what it could offer me, I was hoping to find a thesis or two to gather some sources or give me some general info, but instead I found a multitude of websites describing their modular homes for sale and how cheap and easy it is to buy into these homes.
        Continuing my search, I found a look onto prefab housing from a negative stand point. The guys at http://blog.buildllc.com gave a list of 10 major factors on why these homes are failing. Site selection has to be generally flat or else you will need to manipulate the land, the top prefab housing vendor is going out of business, and the fact that the new and innovative leaders in prefab housing are failing to solve the simple problems of the home, like keeping rain out and controlling air temperature are a few of the reasons prefab homes are not a viable source of housing. “Like any other mass-produced product, prefabs need to sell at a certain volume to pencil out financially. While we don’t know what that tipping point is, we’re guessing that there just aren’t enough consumers with a modern design philosophy to support the formula. Buckminster Fuller and Jean Prouve designed and built successful models decades ago that provided cost-effective, mass-produced, pre-fab housing. One of the main reasons that these models didn’t work is because they didn’t look like little bungalows with white picket fences. As a society, we may not be evolved enough yet for well designed pre-fabs (buildllc.com).” Hopefully we will be able to look back at these great minds and build off what we have learned to develop a successful prefab home that addresses and solves as many issues as possible.