A report issued in the UK has suggested that the answer to the
UK's, and perhaps the world's housing crisis lies in the
prefabricated house. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors
(RICS) has undertaken a study that shows that modular or
pre-fabricated housing is the answer by providing low cost, high
volume houses as replacement or new buildings for the low income
earners suffering at the bottom of the housing ladder.
This is a very complex and flawed argument.
Firstly, in specific reference to the UK, market supply is not the
problem. The problem is the planning approval system and the
release of land.
Having low incomers living in modular houses that cost less than a
luxury car is a factor of mass production, design and application.
No planning authority, after the issues in the UK in the 1960's and
70's system building boom, would allow post war mass housing to
happen again - and neither would the neighbours.
The UK has a planning problem but the next, and the most
poignant issue in all modular buildings, is cost.
Modular housing, to the standard that would be expected by the
discerning customer of 2011, is more expensive that traditional
building. The arguments for modular housing on small scale projects
is generally not applicable. It's arguably not any quicker, quality
control is only a factor of the management on the site and cost is
certainly not comparable to traditional builds. The problem stems
from local requirements for variations in design and the lack of
fleibility in any cost effective modular mass production. They need
to be cookie cutter houses to beat the price and the modern towns
and cities call for variety and articulation.
So why do people try to do it? Modular buildings are funky and the
architectural industry is fascinated with pre-fabrication. Their
fascination stems back to their student days when the ideals of
factory built buildings being delivered to new, perfectly designed
towns and populated with new perfectly proportioned people seemed
viable and very straightforward. As we all know, life is very
different when you leave school.
Architects design a system, build one or two houses, discover it's
twice the price of traditional building and fail to get any
traction in the market.
There is an underlying trend here though, and it's positive for
modular building. Architects are driving design innovation and
delivering customers funky, fun and attractive buildings. The
customers are happy and that, in all manner of ways, is what we all
need to achieve. Take what the boutique suppliers can do with
design, think about the process of manufacture and deliver a home
that people will want to buy. Manufacturers across the world have
been doing it for years and will continue to do it for years to
come. They reach the price point by leveraging on other issues such
as site access, skilled labour shortages and the fact that some
customers want to build it because they think it's cool.
But that hasn't solved the problem. Deliver a low cost, small foot
print sustainable home for less money than the construction
industry can knock one up for - and deliver it at a town
development scale to a timescale that is much less than traditional
building.
Quicksmart Homes have developed their patented Hybrid House.
This scales up prefabricated elements of a small footprint house
and allows the overall cost of the building to be around the same
price as conventional builds. The time savings Quicksmart are
gaining are due to the scale. It takes as long to build one house
as it does to complete 50 - if you plan it right. The sites in
progress in Australia are already delivering beneficial gains in
large scale developments.