That’s a good article about the issues with building today.
He has a one-liner:
The combination of consumer tastes, low dollar value per volume building components, and the complexity of buildings inhibit efforts to scale.
The solution screams 3D printing. Consumer tastes and building complexity? You can print whatever shape you want AKA we can print your weirdest ideas, no problem. The issue here is local code and zoning (even in the 1940s FLW had issues with cities to build flat roofs because it was simply disliked; it hasn’t gotten much better since).
Low dollar value per volume building components? Sure, but in the case of a prefab, this is all combined. If a 3D printing factory scales up, it will incorporate those tiny savings and they will show up in a few % off the total price. It is an enormous issue otherwise, true.
Any complex attempt at prefab or modular, including by Toyota itself, has failed to reach any significant market share.
That’s mostly because it’s been very badly marketed out there. If you told people “buy a prefab house that fits your lifestyle, costs you $80-$100 a year to cool and heat, doesn’t need any specific maintenance ever and where you can go on your green roof to chill; you can move in in a month”, trust me, that shit would fly off the shelves. Put my broke ass on the waiting list, bro.
If prefab is used to build the usual classic, super not efficient house, then prefab is obviously useless. (for those who don’t know, the two massive advantages of prefab: almost no waste compared to a classic construction site; you can make an air-tight house, which allows extremely low needs in heating/cooling, which is crucial to sustain good housing)
The article is about single-family homes. I don’t think building cheap multi-family triplexes is great, as it calls for murders between folks and their thin “low-cost” walls. I do think that considering how societies are moving, we need the ability to build smaller houses for singles and couples without kids.
We need a way more modular way of building housing because we are way more modular in life too.