Modular houses are composed of one or more factory-built modules. This house was delivered to the site in 15 modules.
The 7,100-sq.ft. Greenridge house in Lake Geneva, WI, was constructed using a prefabricated panelized system, which is heavily insulated. The house was framed in 3½ weeks as opposed to several months.
|
Factory Direct Prefabulous: The House of Your Dreams Delivered Fresh from the Factory
by Sheri Koones
The Taunton Press, Inc., Newtown, CT; 2007
224 pp.; hardcover; 250 full-color drawings and
40 b&w drawings; $25
ISBN 978-1-56158-844-2
Reviewed by Stephen A. Mouzon
Prefabulous by Sheri Koones is one of The Taunton Press’ latest books about homebuilding. The title leaves very little doubt concerning its promotion of, rather than reporting on, the prefabricated housing industry. If there was any question, the subtitle erases it: “The House of Your Dreams, Delivered Fresh from the Factory.” I began reading with the distinct impression that what I had in my hands was a brochure written by an industry insider. And maybe Koones is; though a quick Google search did not reveal the strength of her ties with the industry. But in any case, the book exceeded the expectations laid down by the title very quickly.
The introduction spends only a few paragraphs promoting the industry before launching into a good history of prefabricated homes and components in the U.S. And the author can certainly be excused for promoting this industry, considering its sad history since World War II. The industry’s story began well enough, with the Sears and Aladdin kit houses of the early 1900s, but it swerved into a serious downturn with the detour into post-World War II trailers. The industry first tried to upgrade its image in the 1970s by changing the name of the product from “trailers” to “mobile homes.” Their perception was that the reason their product was so roundly reviled was because of the cramped quarters, hence the re-naming to something that sounded larger. And they started building them larger, too: the infamous “double-wides” became ubiquitous during this era.
Unfortunately, the industry misread the public. Trailers had been despised for decades, so much so that city after city banned them entirely. Because nobody had figured out how to ban poor design at the time, the cities chose the most convenient method: banning trailers based on size. So it’s no surprise why the industry wanted to build products that sounded (and were) larger. The public, of course, has never had a problem with “small like a yacht.” Their problem was the poor design and poor quality of construction.
It is no surprise that Prefabulous scarcely makes mention of this period. The book would have been stronger, in this reviewer’s estimation, had it addressed this sad era head-on, because, against such a dark background, the factory-building of homes today looks even better. As told by Koones, however, the only point of comparison is site-building. The differences between site-building and modular construction are much less striking than the differences between modular construction and trailers or mobile homes of the 1970s.
Dark background or not, the author does a very good job of marching through the various building systems in great detail. She begins with modular construction, which involves factory-building large pieces, or modules, of the house and assembling them onsite. Each building system is illustrated with a number of built examples, laying out in as much detail as is feasible in a 224-page book the various options that each house employs. The author also scatters factory-detail sidebars throughout the book, illustrating everything from the basic factory conditions to some of the most common equipment. Through all of the sidebar diversions into other issues such as raw-material acquisition, waste management, Energy Star ratings, connection details and reclaimed wood, Koones never loses sight of the central theme of the benefits of factory-building over site-building.
The second chapter deals with panelized construction based on stick-framing methods. This is perhaps the fastest-growing portion of the factory-built housing industry because, to a casual observer, the house is being framed in the normal manner with wood studs. This has allowed panelized construction to largely escape the “trailer stigma” that afflicts the rest of the industry to this day. What the casual observer might not notice would be the fact that, while the walls are stood up and fastened together in a conventional manner, each wall panel is assembled in a factory rather than in the field, saving weeks or months of time with greater dimensional accuracy and just as much strength as site-built houses.
The third chapter describes a relatively new sort of panelized construction: that accomplished with structural insulating panels, or SIPs. These panels fabricate a wall, roof or floor panel with a hard structural skin such as plywood on each face and an insulating material such as closed-cell polystyrene in the middle. The lion’s share of the book is taken up describing timber-frame and log construction. This is not surprising, because these structures allow for the most beautiful (and most unique) interior photos. The book closes with short chapters on concrete-panel construction and steel construction, followed by three resource pages listing the architect, manufacturer and builder of each of the houses featured.
The one serious omission of the book is the category of manufactured housing, where houses are delivered complete to the jobsite in either one or two pieces. “Manufactured housing” is the direct descendant of trailers and mobile homes. Manufactured-housing companies have been building houses stronger than their site-built counterparts for nearly a decade, in most cases. They have been building interiors that are indiscernible from site-built houses in recent years, too. The one thing they have not solved until now is exterior design. But many of them know they must, and are now actively working to do so. Recent events, most notably Hurricane Katrina, have catalyzed that effort. Katrina Cottage VII was the first built to the “trailer standard” of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development code, yet it clearly illustrates the fact that the impediment to manufacturing great design hasn’t been the assembly line; it has been the designs themselves. Hopefully, by the time the author sets out to write a second edition of Prefabulous, there will be a substantial quantity of manufactured architecture to include with the other prefab methods. 
Stephen A. Mouzon, AIA, CNU, LEED, is an architect based in Miami Beach, FL. He is also a principal of the New Urban Guild.
«BACK TO SEPTEMBER 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS
|
|
