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For years, Chris Brown and Sarah Johnson talked about building a second home as affordably as they could – a concern that eventually led them to construct a prefab cabin in the verdant enclave of Lost River, WV. Prefab is short for prefabricated, meaning homes whose parts are built in a factory and assembled at the construction site, as opposed to a “stick-built” home, which uses materials cut on location. Prefab has been a building option since the turn of the last century, when advances in manufacturing and transportation enabled retailers such as Sears to design, build, and ship “kit homes” to customers across the nation. Now the model is being embraced by design enthusiasts and environmentalists alike for its flexibility, efficiency, and structural soundness.
After spending a weekend in Rocio Romero’s Luminhaus – a home that has become part of the prefab canon – Brown and Johnson decided their second home would be prefabricated. The New York firm Resolution: 4 Architecture (RES4) gained recognition in 2003 for its winning entry in the Dwell Home Design Invitational, which put them on Brown and Johnson’s radar. Another draw, Brown says: “[They] seemed interested in how cost-effective [the project] could be.” Principal Joseph Tanney concurs. “It is the smallest, tightest, most efficient [home] we’ve done so far.”
Tanney outlines what he calls the three tiers of building that fall under the umbrella of prefab. On the lowest end of the cost-and-quality spectrum is “the manufactured house – the FEMA trailer.” The “kit-apart” home, on the other hand, is the closest relative of the site-built home, being constructed from the ground up using pre-cut materials. The compromise between these two styles is the modular home, which RES4 has embraced for its value and flexibility. “Modular shows up [on site] like legos,” explains Tanney. In other words, RES4 pre-builds pieces of the home – “conceptual building blocks” or “modules of use” that arrive fully equipped – and allows the home’s designer to fit the pieces together as he or she sees fit.
One of the advantages to prefab, he says, is that there are fewer variables – “you can constrain the cost and the timeline much more than with a stick-built home.” A factory can minimize its waste and recycle, which reduces excess even more when the home is actually constructed. Efficiencies that are inherent to the prefab building process make it a lot easier, Tanney says. Examine any given construction site, he continues, and you’ll see “a big Dumpster out front,” filling up with excess materials as builders cut through trial-and-error. While individual builders buy retail, incurring higher costs and adding another step in the chain of merchants, factories are able to order in larger quantities directly from distributors, saving money and the need for extra shipping. In Tanney’s words: “Sustainability works on many levels.”
Builders are embracing prefab not only for its smaller carbon footprint, but for its impact on human health. Upon visiting a prefab factory in New Hampshire, says Michelle Roberts, president of Chatham Hill Residential Design and Build, “I was blown away. My mouth dropped.” She realized she needed to study modular construction in order to harness the incredible potential she saw. This method of building is far superior to the conventional mode, she says – it’s faster, with fewer scraps and much less noise. “I always say that we’re trying to take the trans-fat out of the homes.”
In addition to its efficiency, says Roberts, this method of building enables a structural drum-tightness conducive to healthier living. “The most important thing, in terms of healthy construction, is the house being tight.” Before we had the benefit of climate control, she says, houses had to breathe. Looser construction, however, meant that more allergens – “little critters” and the like – could penetrate a home. Now, with the aid of prefab building, you can have a “super tight, energy-efficient, healthy home.”
In addition, Roberts says, “there’s an emotional thing” – the correlation between mental health and the physical environment. “We spend 90 percent of our time indoors – how do you survive without a healthy place to live?”
There is, of course, the visual component. Brown and Johnson have been fans of modernism “since [they] started buying furniture,” however, Brown says, “eight years ago, no commercially viable prefab was modern.” But the boxy, minimal structures adapted easily to the aesthetic of modernism and fans of the style quickly caught on. “To design a modern prefab home,” says Tanney, is “the holy grail of modernism.”
