Why Hasn't Factory-Built Housing Delivered?

For more than half a century, prefabricated and modular housing has promised to change the way we build homes.

The promise was remarkably simple.

Lower cost. Higher quality. Faster delivery.

The holy trinity of manufacturing.

It is the formula that transformed the automotive industry.

It transformed aviation.

It transformed consumer electronics.

It transformed almost every manufactured product we use every day.

As factories improved productivity, products became better while becoming more affordable. That is the promise of industrialisation.

Housing was expected to follow the same path.

It hasn't.

Today, Australia has a recently established modular housing industry. These factories use digital design, 2D-CNC machinery, highly unadvanced engineering and low-precision manufacturing to produce homes and remote accommodation.

Housing affordability continues to decline.

Construction productivity remains stubbornly low.

Labour shortages continue.

Governments continue searching for ways to increase housing supply.

If factory manufacturing transformed the economics of almost every other industry...

Why hasn't it transformed housing?

Walk through any modular housing factory today.

What do you see?

Not automotive production lines.

Not aircraft assembly.

Not highly automated manufacturing.

Instead, you'll often see something remarkably familiar.

Carpenters framing walls.

Electricians installing wiring.

Plumbers fitting pipework.

Plasterers lining walls.

Cabinet makers installing kitchens.

Painters.

Floor layers.

Trade follows trade.

One activity follows another.

The weather has changed.

The roof has changed.

The underlying production methodology has changed far less.

The building site has simply moved indoors.

That observation is not criticism.

Factory-built housing has undoubtedly improved workplace safety.

But improving the environment in which construction occurs is not the same as reinventing the manufacturing process itself.

The promise of industrialisation was never simply to build indoors.

The promise was to fundamentally change the economics of housing.

There is another influence quietly shaping factory-built housing.

The truck.

Every completed building must leave the factory.

Its width.

Its height.

Its weight.

Its lifting points.

Its transport route.

Its bridge clearances.

Its escort vehicles.

Long before a family walks through the front door, the road network has already influenced the architecture.. the truck dimensions became the architect.

What do you think?

Has factory-built housing fulfilled its promise of lower cost, higher quality and faster delivery?

Or is the industry still searching for the manufacturing breakthrough that transformed every other major industry?

About The Shelter Journal

The Shelter Journal explores housing, resilience, architecture, manufacturing and the future of shelter. Published by Diamond Weave, it is an open invitation to question how we build and how better shelter might be made available to more people.