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By Sara Hart

As logical as KTA’s proposal sounded, the politics of convincing all interested (read: liable) parties to accept a prefab solution required a test of skill greater than solving the design problems. Many architects who have solved the technical problems of prefabrication have not yet been confronted with the political side effects of proposing the unfamiliar. In this case, the New Haven Building Trades Council, 20 people at the university, the construction manager, the modular assembly company, the fire marshal, and the building inspector all had to be convinced that modular prefabrication was the best and most cost-effective solution.

Proponents of prefabrication and factory-built components will also have to reconsider the contractual arrangements that are standard in on-site construction. The construction manager, for instance, is generally paid according to how much construction takes place on-site. In the case of Pierson, another fee arrangement was worked out, but Kieran and Timberlake believe that new paradigms will have to be invented if prefabrication is ever to gain widespread acceptance beyond the single-family dwelling.

Thinking ahead

Perhaps it’s not yet a juggernaut that promises to revolutionize the building industry, but there’s evidence in other places that this is a serious development in the construction industry and the architectural profession. Research into technological innovation and emerging design possibilities are cropping up in academia. This semester at Yale, one studio of graduate architecture students is engaged in just such an inquiry. Associate Dean Peggy Deamer has been surprised by the results of creating an atypical studio assignment. “The research has led students away from thinking of this primarily as an opportunity for a middle-income, single-family house type. On a trip to Sweden, we saw IKEA’s prefabricated Bo Klok housing—a six-unit building, deployed in a six-building (36 unit) community,” she recounts. “The experience led the students to rethink the typical program for a single-family house in the open landscape. The ambiguity of producing for a market that was not really in need of prefab but might choose it for its hipness seemed slightly troubling. So the students have concentrated on urban sites, communal structures, or a redesign of a lower-end manufactured house.”

Admittedly, prefabrication is not yet a development threatening to revolutionize design and construction. There are problems to solve, but they no longer appear to be deal killers. A power struggle may ensue as architects seek more control over the means and methods of construction. There will be regulatory challenges, too, although HUD’s standardization of manufactured housing (see sidebar, page 126), known unofficially as the HUD Code, may turn out to be the prototype for other kinds of building. More importantly, the force of a gathering storm of architectural talent and imagination does seem to have the makings of a movement.