Designer prefab homes grow in popularity

updated 3:27 p.m. ET April 5, 2005

NEW YORK - Christa Walker’s new home was designed by an architect, made of environmentally friendly materials, and will arrive at the lot in just a few pieces — straight from the factory that built it.

The word “prefab” rarely inspires excitement from buyers like Walker and her partner Ami McElroy, who initially conjured up images of mobile homes and vinyl siding. But the two are among a small but growing number of homeowners who are interested in design but unable to afford the exclusive services of an architect, and who’ve turned to prefab homes.

“We really couldn’t afford a custom house that would meet our style and our sensibility,” said Walker, whose 1,510-square-foot home on Vashon Island, Wash., is scheduled to reach the site this month.

Michelle Kaufmann, the San Francisco architect who designed their home, on a model she calls Glide House, said her goal was to create affordable modern designs that can be reproduced for multiple customers — a movement she and architects like her call mass customization.

Only a few architects in the country have started designing for modern mass customization, and only one or two dozen of the homes have been built. But the trend appears to be growing, as architects such as Joe Tanney convince more factories that there is a market.

He said many manufacturers, fearing they would become known as makers of glorified trailer homes, refused when his firm approached them.

“Most modular manufacturers don’t believe there’s a market for a modern American home,” Tanney said. “We have more potential clients than we do manufacturers in their locations to turn to.”

The design factor
Allison Arieff, co-author of the book “Prefab” and editor of Dwell magazine, said the majority of homes and offices in the United States are already prefab to some extent.

“What has changed is the introduction of design into the mix,” she said.

Kaufmann started her career with the architect Frank Gehry, best known for his twisting buildings made of sheets of metal, such as the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. She started considering prefab when she and her husband were looking for a home in the San Francisco Bay area and found nothing that met their budget — or their style.

What they ended up building, she said, was a “clean, green, modern box” — something that was environmentally friendly, modern and relatively inexpensive. Friends and others who saw their house wanted something similar, and she began casting around for a way to replicate the process. She is under contract for 40 additional homes.

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