The idea of modular housing has been around for a while. World-famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the modular units shown above more than a hundred years ago.
More recently . . . Buckminster Fuller was an architect, visionary and futurist, well-known for his promotion of the geodesic dome — an architectural feature of Montreal’s Expo 67 still standing today. Fuller envisioned Dymaxion House and built prototypes using factory assembled modules.
Dymaxion House is on display in the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
Habitat 67 was also on display at Expo 67. This work of Moshe Safdie consisted of pre-fabricated concrete apartments.
Habitat 67, 50 years on.
In spite of modularity’s promise, practical interest in modular construction, let alone use, has been slow to develop.
The current world-wide affordable housing crisis has recently sparked new interest and enthusiasm for modular housing. Conventional housing construction is a slow, expensive process, often crippled by a lack of trained labour. For decades, it has been highly resistant to change. Indeed, its limitations have been a major contributor to the unaffordability of housing.
Can affordable housing construction benefit from factory-based modularity? The jury is still out. Modular projects have been completed, but not without teething pains. For a worthwhile exploration of how, just like conventional construction, modular construction has limitations, read more in this 2016 article from CURBED NEW YORK: Modular Construction In New York City, Once the Future, Is Fading.
So is modular housing truly a fading promise? In spite of the somewhat pessimistic tone of the CURBED article, an explosion of widely different modular construction methods today continues to fuel optimism for the success of increasing numbers of modular housing projects under development in many nations.1
Interior shot in world’s tallest modular building.
For an in-depth must-read exploration of today’s modular housing potential read an article with a provocative title featured in the National Review: Modular Housing Is Affordable Housing
Footnotes
- For other stories on this subject try Need More Affordable Housing? “Grown Men Who Play With Lego” Are Waiting For Your Call and Cross Border Shopping Now Includes Modular Housing Units
