Transforming the Prefab Home Using Principles of Sustainable Design

Published by Marina Hoag on October 14, 2008 under Green Building, LEED

Prefab – the word itself evokes 1950s suburban Levittown, cheap-and-cheesy, practical plywood boxes. Emergency housing at best, drab habitation for human hamsters. But look now: pre-fabricated buildings are having a Cinderella moment. Driven by the sustainable design movement, ‘Prefab 2.0’ is a vast improvement over the dreary mass construction methods of the past.

Green architects and designers in growing numbers are re-thinking prefab from the inside out, moving beyond the stark modern style of industrial tab-and-slot homes to more livable, likeable designs. Current prefab homes —aka modular—combine assembly-line techniques (economies of scale are good!) with energy-efficient design and nontoxic, renewable materials (environmental and personal health are even better!). These features make the new generation of green prefab homes more affordable, environmentally friendly, and—the heart of the affair—better integrated into urban neighborhoods.

‘Cookie-cutter’ and ‘flimsy’ are two of old-style prefab’s negative associations, but neither applies to Prefab 2.0. Ready-built rooms can serve as building blocks to create home layouts and sizes that are specific to a given family’s needs. Use of quality materials is another hallmark of green prefab—such low-cost, high-quality goods as bamboo flooring, water-saving plumbing fixtures, energy-efficient mechanical ventilation systems.

Already gaining popularity in Europe and Asia, modular homes are assembled off-site and reconstructed at their habitat destination. The resurgence is rooted in part in the work of Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, whose fame rose on deployment of his paper modular houses in the wake of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Using prefab techniques, developer Postgreen is just underway in the process of building a LEED-certified infill townhouse in Philadelphia. The project is called the 100K House because they are attempting to build it for $100,000. Other exciting green prefab companies include Los Angeles’ pieceHomes; the Office of Mobile Design in Venice, California; Hive Modular in Minneapolis; H-Haus in Santa Fe; and Eco-Infill in Denver.

My interest in urban design extends beyond the physical. No one wants to see green prefab homes end up as a trade show curiosity, or another means to urban gentrification. To make these home truly sustainable, we need to offer equitable marketing and financing. The polar opposite of a McMansion, the green prefab home symbolizes the architecture of a more humble America—happy to live on less, happier to focus on community and sustainability.