Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsInsightful and Astoundingly Good Treatise on PreFab Building Methods
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2019
After decades of interest in affordable residential construction methods, thousands of dollars invested in Peter Miller Design Bookstore in my hometown of Seattle, a pilgrimage to MIT and Harvard Universities to research Walter Gropius and Karl Wachsmann's pioneering efforts in prefab, I can say without reservation you will learn find an enormous amount of useful, practical information in this well organized book. I most certainly did.
If you are tired of pretty coffee table displays of extravagantly expensive "prefab" architecture (mostly angular, sterile modernism, mis-classified as a book on prefab), then in this book you have finally found an intelligent reservoir of useful analysis covering the deep history of prefabricated architecture, it's variety of scales and applications: commercial, residential. The author is not afraid to explore the strengths and weaknesses of prefab methodology, gathered from his direct connection to the industry and countless interviews of prefab practitioners: designers, fabricators and their clients.
My own application is to launch a startup firm, with others in Seattle, to provide significantly more affordable ADU (backyard cottages) so desperately needed as a density option in the increasingly unaffordable Seattle metro area. I mention this to indicate how much I appreciate both the theory and practice elements in the book.
