Michael Wyetzner of Michielli + Wyetzner Architects returns to AD to discuss prefab architecture and why it could be the future of housing–but probably won’t be. Prefabricated architecture has always posed a more affordable and sustainable future for housing as they’re fast and cheaper to build and produce less waste in the long run, so why hasn’t it taken over? Wyetzner delves into the history of prefab and why it failed to take off how many architects have hoped it would.
ASSETS
J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute
ASSETS
J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Prefab architecture is having a moment.
00:01Prefab homes are faster and cheaper to build
00:04than traditional homes.
00:05They promise less waste, more sustainability,
00:08and they have the flexibility to be shipped
00:10to almost any location you want,
00:12which seems perfect for a population
00:14that is able to work remotely more than ever before.
00:16But this isn't the first time that prefab architecture
00:19has been talked about as the future of housing.
00:21So why isn't that future now?
00:23Hi, I'm Michael Weitzner,
00:24and I've been an architect for over 35 years.
00:26And today, we're gonna look at the many lives
00:28of prefab architecture.
00:29From its ancient origins to its modern innovations,
00:33and see why it could be the future of home building,
00:35but it probably won't be.
00:39First off, the word prefab is short for prefabricated,
00:42which just means that the components of a building
00:44are created in one place and assembled in another.
00:48The earliest forms of prefab housing
00:49were created tens of thousands of years ago
00:52by nomadic peoples around the world,
00:54including the Native American Tipi,
00:56the Mongolian Yurt, the Sami Lavu, and the Inuit Tupik.
01:02Although they go by many names,
01:04these structures are all variations on a tent.
01:08A lightweight frame with some sort of fabric
01:11or animal hide stretched over it.
01:13In fact, the word tent comes from the Latin word tendere,
01:16which means to stretch.
01:18These tent structures could be disassembled
01:20and reassembled quickly,
01:22and were also lightweight and easy to carry.
01:24And the fact that they had a uniform design
01:27and relatively few parts meant that new ones
01:29could be created quickly with minimal time and materials.
01:32Later, the Romans would build on this idea,
01:34creating wooden prefabricated panels
01:37to quickly build forts on battlefields.
01:39And in the mid 1800s, architect Joseph Paxton
01:42created the Crystal Palace
01:44for the First World's Fair in London,
01:46creating a nearly one million square foot building
01:48entirely out of glass panels
01:50that were all exactly the same size, 10 inches by 49 inches.
01:54But although this idea of prefabrication
01:57had been a part of human history
01:58for tens of thousands of years,
01:59it wouldn't be applied to the idea of permanent housing
02:01in a meaningful way until after the Industrial Revolution.
02:04The Industrial Revolution was the birth
02:06of mass manufacturing,
02:07using patterns and specialized equipment
02:09to make an identical product at a massive scale.
02:11Then in 1901, the assembly line was patented
02:14by Ransom E. Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile,
02:17and was later famously improved
02:20by his competitor, Henry Ford,
02:22who introduced automated conveyor belts to the process.
02:25The assembly line was so effective
02:27that it increased productivity by almost 500%.
02:30And as these processes were being refined,
02:33the housing industry found itself
02:34with a golden opportunity.
02:36In 1848, gold was discovered in a mine
02:38in Northern California.
02:40And starting the next year, in 1849,
02:42around 300,000 people moved to San Francisco
02:45and the area around it to make their fortunes.
02:48And these 49ers, as they were known, needed homes.
02:51But there weren't enough home builders locally
02:52to meet the demand.
02:53And so, as the gold rush attracted people
02:56from across the United States,
02:57the Pacific Islands, South America, and Asia,
03:01it also created, for the first time,
03:02a demand for prefab housing.
03:04Less than one year after the gold rush started,
03:07around 5,000 of these homes had already been ordered
03:10and shipped from New York to San Francisco.
03:13And that number doesn't even include
03:14those produced in Philadelphia, Boston, Maine, or China.
03:19Often called kit homes,
03:20these early prefab homes were very simple.
03:22After the gold rush, these kit homes
03:24would become more complex, larger, and more varied in style.
03:29And the idea of mail-order houses took off
03:31among homebuyers around the United States.
03:33Probably the most famous architect
03:35to design some of these early kit homes
03:38was Frank Lloyd Wright.
03:39This is an example of one of the early houses
03:41that he designed,
03:42which he called American System Built Homes.
03:45And what I find remarkable about this prefabricated house
03:49is how much it looks like
03:50all of his other prairie-style houses
03:53that he built custom for very wealthy clients.
03:56It's got all these great horizontal lines.
03:59It's got the deep roof overhang.
04:01It's got the horizontal windows that wrap around.
04:05It's got the planters out front
04:07that sort of transition from the lawn
04:10to a low planter to a higher planter.
04:12And I love that he put this,
04:13what appears to be copper edging along the roof.
04:17In fact, the whole idea was that
04:18he was offering a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home
04:22at a very inexpensive price from his mail-order line.
04:25That was his pitch.
04:26The other thing I find that's so interesting about this
04:29is that typically Frank Lloyd Wright homes
04:31are often in remote places, in cities,
04:36but never clustered together like these are on one street.
04:40Very few of these still exist,
04:42but there happened to be six of them
04:43on one street called Burnham Street in Milwaukee.
04:47And it sort of gives you a little glimpse
04:48of what people imagined the future of housing could be like.
04:51But Wright wasn't the only one offering kit homes,
04:53or even the first one to do so.
04:55By far, the largest manufacturer of kit homes
04:58was Sears Roebuck and the lesser known Aladdin Company.
05:01The Sears catalog offered a dizzying variety
05:04of styles and sizes of homes.
05:06Well, if you ordered a home from the Sears catalog,
05:09they would provide you with all the pieces cut to size,
05:12including the nails and the screws and the directions,
05:16just like a flat pack piece of furniture
05:19that you would buy today.
05:20Sears Modern Homes, as they were called,
05:22offered over 370 designs.
05:25And they sold more than 70,000 kit homes
05:27from 1908 to 1942, ranging from simple bungalows
05:31to large multi-story colonials.
05:34So although they provided this entire
05:36sort of prefab package,
05:39the homeowner still had to lay the foundation,
05:42provide the plumbing, and provide the electricity.
05:44And they had to do that all themselves
05:45or pay somebody else to do it,
05:47which brings up a point of clarification
05:49about prefab homes.
05:50Some types of prefab houses are more prefabricated
05:53than others.
05:54At one end of the spectrum, you have these kit homes
05:56which arrive in pieces.
05:58In fact, our firm has actually designed
06:00a kit home of this type.
06:01My partner, Frank Micheli, devised an ingenious system
06:04for transporting a 2,000 square foot home
06:07in a single shipping container.
06:09Then there was a middle ground where some component parts,
06:11even entire rooms, are preassembled in a factory
06:14and then attached on site.
06:16And it ranges all the way to homes
06:18that are completely built in a factory setting
06:20and shipped to the location fully assembled.
06:23But even this last type of home will need a foundation,
06:25a connection to the sewer system or a septic field,
06:28and electrical power from the local grid or a generator.
06:32So let's take a look at some of these other types
06:33of prefab houses,
06:34starting with an entirely prefabricated version,
06:37the trailer.
06:38So this is probably the most famous of the trailers
06:42and one of the first, the Airstream.
06:45And here's everything that jumps out at me.
06:46It's got this sort of capsule shape.
06:48It's streamlined.
06:50And I also love that it's completely made out of metal.
06:52It's aluminum, lightweight.
06:54It's a single axle, which is fantastic.
06:57So it's only one set of wheels.
07:00And it's very reminiscent of trains and airplanes.
07:03And in fact, many early trailers were designed
07:05to use surplus military material.
07:09And what's totally cool about it is you hitch it up
07:11to your station wagon
07:12and you can take it anywhere with you.
07:14So just like the first wave of prefab housing
07:16in the mid 1800s was fueled by manufacturing,
07:19so was a rapid rise in the number of people
07:21who owned cars in the United States in the early 1900s.
07:25This meant that people could travel more often
07:27and farther afield than ever before.
07:30But at the time, there were relatively few hotels
07:32and places to stay compared to today.
07:34And that led to a demand for what was called a motor home,
07:38which you could hitch to your car
07:40and take with you around the country.
07:42Because so many people were traveling this way
07:44for recreation, it led to the creation of mobile home parks.
07:48These started in California,
07:49where they were originally just campgrounds
07:51with access roads for people to park their campers.
07:55But starting in the 1920s,
07:56these mobile home parks became places
07:59for permanent residents,
08:01which led to different designs for mobile homes.
08:04First of all, these trailer homes have no axles.
08:08They have no wheels.
08:10And that's because they're not meant
08:11to be pulled behind a car.
08:13In fact, these arrive at their site
08:16on the back of a flatbed truck.
08:17So what I love about this image is that all of a sudden,
08:21the designs of these mobile homes
08:24have become more like regular homes.
08:26You see a pitched roof with faux shingles on it,
08:31and you see the screen door and the double-hung windows,
08:35more like you would find in an actual house.
08:39They have these access roads
08:40where you can pull your car into a driveway,
08:42as you can see right here and right here.
08:45So they're creating this village
08:46out of these truly prefabricated homes.
08:49So these homes were very affordable,
08:51but quite often, things that are inexpensive
08:54get associated with things that are low-quality.
08:56And the term trailer park all of a sudden
08:58got associated with low-quality homes,
09:01which gave prefabricated architecture
09:04sort of a bad reputation.
09:05But despite their lack of glamor,
09:07mobile homes might be the most successful version
09:10of prefabricated architecture we have to date.
09:13In fact, around 6% of Americans live in mobile homes.
09:16Another factor that makes them less attractive also
09:18is that they're made out of metal.
09:20One of the predecessors to the modern mobile home
09:23included military structures like the Quonset Hut,
09:26which was developed by the US Navy after World War I,
09:29and which was in turn inspired by the British Nissen Hut.
09:33And there were many other types of prefab homes
09:35built from excess military materials,
09:38including lustron houses,
09:40which used enamel-coated steel for its walls,
09:43and shipping container homes.
09:45But because these are made from metal,
09:47these homes tend to have poor insulation
09:49and never quite caught on with the public
09:50despite their affordability and rapid construction times.
09:54And the negative reputation of mobile homes
09:56made people suspicious of the built quality
09:58of prefabricated housing
10:00compared to traditional site-built homes.
10:03And another place where they're experimenting
10:05with military surplus to make prefab homes was in Europe.
10:08After World War II, there was another surge in demand
10:11for prefab houses as a way to create housing quickly
10:14for homes that had been destroyed during the war.
10:17So this is the Maison Tropicale by Jean Prouvé.
10:20Jean Prouvé was a great French modernist architect,
10:23and he experimented with prefab construction
10:26using military surplus materials after World War II.
10:29This house was actually intended for the French colonies,
10:32but it gives you a sense of the designs
10:33he was creating at the time.
10:35And what I really like about it, starting on the exterior,
10:38is that he creates this brise soleil,
10:42what we also call sunshades,
10:44because it was intended for the tropics
10:46to prevent direct sunlight into the inside of the house.
10:50The other thing he does is he has these prefabricated,
10:54vented parapet panels to create this balcony.
10:58And I also love that he created these very simple rails
11:00where he just takes a piece of stretched canvas
11:04and then sort of strings it to the metal structure,
11:07almost like you would with a sail on a boat.
11:09So what's really remarkable about this house,
11:11as say compared to like a shipping container
11:14or one of the mobile homes we looked at previously,
11:17is this house, while it's built from a kit of parts,
11:21is done in a much more sophisticated manner
11:24that truly speaks to the innovative way
11:27that Prouvé designed and thought about architecture.
11:32So what we're looking at here
11:33is one of the houses that he built in the early 1950s
11:37that was rebuilt from the same parts
11:39here on the waterfront in Queens in 2007.
11:43So this house was so well thought out
11:45that it was able to be disassembled
11:46and then reassembled all those years later.
11:49But even though Prouvé's prefab designs
11:51were beautiful and innovative,
11:53they never really caught on with the French public
11:55and very few of them were ever built.
11:58But at the same time, back in California,
12:00prefab houses would get a major boost
12:02with the program called the Case Study Houses.
12:06So this is the Charles and Ray Eames house.
12:09So Charles and Ray Eames were a husband and wife
12:11architect and design duo who created beautiful furniture
12:17as well as great architecture.
12:18So the Case Study Houses was this program
12:22that was intended to be designs for prefabricated houses.
12:27And so a number of very famous architects
12:31were employed to design their version
12:34of a prefabricated house and then that would be used
12:37in the future to be rebuilt again and again.
12:40And a model of each one of these houses was built
12:42in the Hollywood Hills of California.
12:44And what I love about this house
12:45is that they took component parts
12:47that you would find to build factories
12:51or any other type of very industrial architecture
12:54and you could see it here with these lightweight trusses
12:57and the steel columns and the panels
13:00and even expressing the required x-bracing
13:04for the structure.
13:05The other thing they did which I really like
13:07is they almost composed it like a Mondrian painting
13:10in that they kept all the lines of structure black
13:13and they filled in most of the panels
13:15with white and the windows and then they,
13:17every now and then, added a little burst of color.
13:20It's warm and beautiful and it's very affordable
13:25and that's because it's made out of these very common
13:28industrial building materials.
13:31There were many case study houses built
13:32by some of the greatest architects of the day,
13:34including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano,
13:36Craig Elwood, and Pierre Koenig.
13:39Case study program ran from the mid-40s
13:42all the way to the mid-60s.
13:44It never really caught on because the style of architecture,
13:48this classic mid-century modern, which we call it now,
13:52didn't align with the tastes of most Americans
13:55at that time, which was more for the traditional type
13:58of homes, colonials and ranches and Cape Cod-style houses.
14:03And today, only the model homes that were built
14:05for the program still exist.
14:08Next up, Habitat 67 in Montreal.
14:12So also in the 1960s in Montreal, Canada,
14:14there was another attempt at solving
14:17the affordable housing issue with prefab architecture.
14:20And this time it was an apartment complex
14:22using modular units.
14:24So Habitat 67 was designed by Moshe Safdie
14:28in the mid-1960s, who at the time
14:30was a very young architect,
14:31and this was his thesis project.
14:33And his idea was that you create
14:36this new egalitarian housing structure
14:40using prefabricated units.
14:43Well, I can't say enough about what a cool idea this was
14:47and how beautifully it ended up being constructed.
14:51And the other idea he had, which was super important,
14:53was that he included gardens in each one
14:56so that the roof of one unit
14:59was the garden of another unit.
15:01And he considered that an essential ingredient
15:02to the architecture of any home.
15:04And these gardens give this building its unique form.
15:09Instead of building straight up,
15:10each piece is offset to create the space for these gardens.
15:15So this was part of a whole movement
15:16of utopian housing ideas by firms
15:19such as Archagram and Superstudio.
15:22But this utopian idea ran into some roadblocks,
15:27not only was it expensive to build,
15:28but it was expensive to maintain,
15:30and they ended up increasing the rents considerably.
15:33So they never did expand it,
15:35and they never did repeat it,
15:37despite its critical acclaim and popularity.
15:40And really, it's incredible and innovative design.
15:43So similar to the case study houses, unfortunately,
15:46they ended up being singular constructions
15:49that turned out not to be for the middle class,
15:53but ended up being for exclusively rich people.
15:57As we've seen, prefab homes are most popular
16:00when there's a sudden demand for housing.
16:03But sudden demand also suddenly goes away.
16:06Most recently, prefab housing surged during the pandemic
16:09because more people were working remotely.
16:12And at the same time,
16:13people were priced out of traditional homes.
16:15But even with all those reasons,
16:17it still only makes up 8%
16:18of the total housing stock in the United States.
16:21And that 8% includes all of the prefab houses
16:23that have ever been built and are still standing.
16:26Even in Japan, where prefab architecture
16:28is much more popular than in the US,
16:30it still only represents around 13%
16:32of new construction for homes.
16:34So why isn't prefab the future of housing?
16:36Well, one is the extreme startup costs.
16:39I mean, to get one built, you've got to create a factory,
16:42you've got to train a workforce,
16:44you have to get all these materials together.
16:47And the only way to make your money back
16:49is to sell a lot of them.
16:51And it's unlikely you'll ever reach that economy of scale
16:53because consumer tastes are fickle
16:55and not everybody wants the same type of house.
16:58And unfortunately, because they are more affordable,
17:01people assume they're of lesser quality,
17:04even if that's not the case.
17:05But that doesn't mean prefab architecture
17:07isn't worth pursuing.
17:08Even if it doesn't ever dominate the housing market,
17:11it has many great and noble aspirations.
17:15It reduces the environmental impact
17:17and is a sustainable way to build.
17:19It increases the affordability of housing
17:22as it comes up with all these great ideas
17:24for the housing of people after natural disasters
17:27when their homes are wiped away.
17:29Look at the work of Shigeru Ban, for instance,
17:32who does these incredibly innovative designs
17:34to house people after natural disasters.
17:36So what do you think of prefab architecture?
17:39Would you live in a prefab house?
17:41Let us know in the comments below.