Customer Reviews

Prefab

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an architecture student now a working as a builder, I couldnt help but being drawn into this book. Organized into 4 sections: History, Production, Custom, Concept, with a wide array of photographs, plans and renderings cleanly presented. The history section does a great job of bringing any curious reader interested in this subject up to speed, creating a great departure point for the 30 or so contemporary projects that follow it. This book is well researched and really gets you excited about the potential of prefab by presenting a wide range of projects in the U.S. and Internationally, exploring a wide range of techniques / systems being developed today. The future of housing looks bright with prefab!

In PREFAB, author Allison Arieff presents an interesting overview of "prefabricated" buildings, past, present, and future. Yet, I would not recommend this book to average modular home consumers, as many of the projects described in PREFAB are highly customized, somewhat eccentric, and generally impractical for those looking to save time and money by utilizing prefab construction as opposed to regular, stick-built construction. Some of the buildings aren't even single-family dwellings, but apartment buildings. Nonetheless, PREFAB is a helpful resource for those who'd like to learn more about the history of prefabricated buildings, as well as the current state of affairs, and in which unusual directions the industry will be headed in the future.

Arieff begins PREFAB with a lengthy (29-page) discussion of the history of prefabricated homes, starting with panelized wood homes in England and the US in 1624, through the American mobile home boom after WWII, and ending with the current state of the industry. The next three sections of the book are devoted to various modern prefab projects. The first, titled "Production," presents "a diverse group of well-designed houses and multi-family dwellings that are either in production, or poised to be." Of the three groups, "Production" is perhaps most relevant to the average consumer; it illustrates the sheer diversity of prefab homes that are available around the world. It also reflects how beautiful prefab homes can be, both inside and out. Next up is "Custom," an eclectic mix of "unique homes by architects less interested in the mass production of houses than in the aesthetic, environmental, and economic benefits of prefabrication." The buildings in this section are stunning - the Penthouse at Albert Court, which sells for $4 to $5 million, is my favorite. Finally, "Concept" features the strangest buildings of the bunch. According the Arieff, the concept buildings represent "a diverse array of virtual and conceptual prefab projects that employ everything from websites to neoprene in order to create the next generation of prefabricated housing." Experimental to the extreme, these plans seem geared towards architects, artists, and other design/construction professionals.

For the beginner, PREFAB is an interesting and engaging introduction to the history of prefabricated housing. As my knowledge of construction and architecture is limited, I can't say whether students or professionals will find PREFAB especially enlightening. I found the author's writing to be crisp and captivating, and I thought there was a good balance of pictures and text. I would definitely recommend PREFAB to newbies who would like to know more about prefab housing; yet, I would direct those looking for a consumer or how-to guide to go elsewhere. Overall, an interesting read, but probably not for everyone (for example, I can see how pros might want additional pictures, larger graphics, and more detailed floor/elevation plans, especially given the book's high price tag).

Prebrication was the holy grail of modernism: the ideal way to rationalize the building process, achieve economies of scale, and bring good design to the masses. Sadly, the only manufactured housing to win wide acceptance was the trailer; architect-designed prototypes seldom left the boards. Arieff, who is senior editor of Dwell magazine, hopes that a new generation of architects may succeed where their forebears failed. She documents over 30 industrialized building projects, mostly from Europe, that combine practicality with design excellence. Sadly, it remains true that people who will happily buy one of a fleet of identical cars, become emotional and irrational when choosing their home. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

It looks like a coffee table book yet reads like a dream. This is not only one of the most comprehensive books on the subject, but easily the most lucid and engaging. The authors clearly had fun with the material and manage to convey a good deal of knowledge - including the history and future of prefabricated housing - without a whiff of pedantry or pedagogical claptrap.

ok, if you're looking for more of a coffee table book than a serious research source. arieff does provide a brief history of some selected prefabricated ventures, but the other 3/4 of the book is of more modern attempts, all of which are not described or displayed as thoroughly as i had hoped. most of the designs are also of doubtful marketability, and the pompous attitudes of some of the designers is off-putting. some pretty pictures, however.

I was so excited when I read some of the reviews of this book, but once I got it, I realized that it is just not the comprehensive book I was looking for. There are tons of pictures, but they are not as good as those in other similar books. The book I do recommend on this topic is "Prefab Modern" by Jill Herbers. The pictures and discriptions are great. It's not a book you'd use to actually build your own home, but it has a variety of ideas and places to start.

I am using PREFAB to help me define differences in prefabrication techniques and this book didn't really help me. There is even a disclaimer attached to the book that states, "We admit to playing fast and loose with the concept of prefabrication here. Many of the houses presented in this book are not prefabricated in the strictest sense of the word. Not all were factory built and assembled. Some houses were built with prefabricated materials like aluminum siding." This gives some illegitimacy to the book. If a building featured in this book has aluminum siding as the only prefabricated piece, then brick suburban homes should be featured as well - at least for consistency.

Saying that aluminum siding is prefab is like saying bricks or CMUs or door frames or sunscreens are all prefab as well. I personally think this statement is untrue. These items are merely standardized pieces to the puzzle - sunscreens put together do not make a building. Prefab is the process of assembling all these things into volumetric modules or panels (SIPs) offsite in a factory.

I do however think the introduction and history were quite informative. Pretty pictures too.

I found this at a tourist place and decided that I needed it, but not at the price in the tourist store. Interesting reading. A friend is a realtor in Tacoma, and has found a few of the Sears homes up there. It's a good book for when you have some time to kill, but don't want to get wrapped up in a novel.

This book was published in 2002. It had many colour photos and schematic diagrams. From pages 12 to 38, it provided a brief history of the prefabricated house. Quite an interesting read. Then, it talked about how these prefab houses were produced. After that, it went to talk about individual custom-built prefab houses and concept prefab houses with examples. At the end of the book, it even provided a list of architects and their addresses who were involved in the projects mentioned in the book. This book is not for the coffee table but on the shelf to be read for information. If you intend to built a prefab house (as in my case), then this book is insufficient in terms of new developments, new designs and new materials being used today. It did not mentioned about the durability and longevity of the prefab houses nor the cost of their maintenance (if any). There is no mention about the contour and size of the land where the prefab houses were being built upon including the total cost of the building at the time. In summary, it's good read for historical information, the journey the prefab house had taken and the various prefab houses being conceived by the various architects around the world.

Prefabricated houses have a reputation for being cheap and ugly, with identical structures and little character - but PREFAB offers a set of exceptions and provides proposals from architects and designers who made their prefabs different. A history of prefab's choices and paths uses the work of over twenty-five modern architects and designers to profile a range of prefab options. Any collection strong in architecture and home design will welcome the color photos, in-depth history and construction details.