History of Prefabrication: A Cultural Survey

Prefabrication is a method of production in housing that has been harnessed to meet the needs and desires of different societies throughout the globe. Although the U.S. owns 26% of the prefabrication housing market, this is primarily due to the shear quantity of growth in the country. The UK, Scandinavia, and Japan control the majority of the innovations in which prefabrication constitutes a larger majority of the overall production of housing in these regions. This can be primarily attributed to the social and cultural contexts that give shape to the tradition of construction and knowledge base that make up these construction markets. This paper examines the history of prefabrication in these societies in order to identify how the U.S. might revaluate its construction ideologies, products and process in order to produce more affordable, higher quality housing.