More and more exciting new projects are emerging that do their part in reinventing what prefab is, and what it can become. In Toronto, Canada, the modular custom builder Royal Homes is launching the Q Series of modernist modular homes this spring. Why? Well, for one, as the company rightly states, "not only the very rich should be able to afford a home designed with great flair and skill by a great architect." The homes, designed by Kohn Shnier Architects, are a green product and can be factory-built in just three weeks.
In Minnesota, architects David Salmela and Tim Alt and landscape architect Shane Coen have teamed up to design Mayo Woodlands, a 470-acre housing development on land owned by the Mayo Clinic family, just outside of Rochester, which features high-end custom homes that incorporate prefabricated wall panels for cost reduction, environmental benefit, and speed of assembly. The first house was completed last year. The Pennsylvania firm Kieran Timberlake Architects just published a mass-customization manifesto, Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Methodologies Are Poised to Transform Building Construction, which celebrates "the ability to differentiate, to distinguish architecture based on site, use and desire . . . resulting in a more sustainable architecture."
Our own Dwell Home, stalled by delays over the holidays mostly related to the completion of final working drawings from the manufacturer, is back on track, with modules scheduled to arrive onsite in North Carolina on April 6. And the architects have nine new prefab projects on the boards. "We're hearing from people who wouldn't have even considered the possibility that they could get a modern home designed by an architect," explains Robert Luntz, partner in the winning Dwell Home firm, Resolution: 4 Architecture.
The question remains: Can custom modular construction and mass customization bring prefab to a higher plane, clearing the way for people to get the dream house they actually dream about as opposed to the one that's available? Prospects look good. As Architectural Record reported in December 2003, "There are problems to solve [with prefabrication] but they no longer appear to be deal killers. . . the force of a gathering storm of architectural talent and imagination does seem to have the makings of a movement."