Location
Timeframe
Client
Program
Status

Not Applicable
2021
Better Holdco, Inc
Design Research
On-Going

A BETTER House requires not only a better understanding of the complexity of building a house today, but also a vision for how to revise and rebuild outdated modalities that prevent the housing market from advancing in an intelligible way.

We believe that the future of the single-family home is one that critically reassembles, intelligently reengineers, and strategically re-composes the elements of a house, leveraging industrial thinking and technological innovation. Understanding the future potential of modularity and prefabrication requires also understanding the evolution of its concepts historically. A wide variety of approaches have been developed and tested, particularly in the 20th century, as both housing needs and production methods changed dramatically. From Buckminster Fuller’s round aluminum Dymaxion House in the 1920s to Richard Horden’s lightweight expandable Yacht House in the 1980s, designers have devised repeatable products and flexible systems as long as mass-industrialization has been around.

Despite their social and environmental promise modular/prefab housing projects remain tethered to fluctuating technological and economic circumstances. They rarely have been carried out to the degree intended, hampering their ability to convince both the public and the industry to take its concepts seriously. The trajectory of historical precedents reveals what has and has not been effective, allowing to identify valuable strategies that can be taken in new directions.

This research outlines the landscape of modular and prefabricated housing based on a review of current literature, highlighting key concepts, logistical factors, and potential strategies. Modularity and prefabrication are understood as overlapping ranges on a spectrum. They correspond to different design possibilities and construction methods—from whole prefabricated houses to individually prefabricated materials put together on site, with a variety of panelized and modular systems in between. Coordination between design and industry is central to the success of these approaches. Logistical factors give modularity and prefabrication advantages over traditional building methods in terms of quality, efficiency, affordability, and sustainability. Potential strategies cover the whole process, from design, sustainable systems, and material selection to transportation and final assembly on site.

This Research and Development phase took a critical look on means and methods—historically and in contemporary practice—to underline and operationalize critical ideas about modular and prefabricated housing to shape a new approach and design strategy for how to build a BETTER House today.