Modern Prefab + Credit Crunch = Teardown
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11.12.08
The architects of the prefabs at the MoMA show Home Delivery were allowed to sell their houses at the end of the show. Most were more works of art rather than livable houses, so it shouldn't really be a surprise that there were not many takers. Only the micro-compact home found a buyer, and it was the only really complete production model of the bunch. (the System 3 house, which I thought was the gem of the show, was shipped back to Europe)
Erica Orden writes in New York Magazine:
The architects were allowed to sell their dream houses after the show closed October 26, and Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev expressed interest in buying all five. But that fell through. “We were in the process of negotiating this, and we were waiting for an answer from his lawyer,” says one of the architects, Lawrence Sass. “And the market crashed the Friday before he was going to give us his answer.”
Stephen Kieran, designer of the cellophane house, told me at the Reimagining Cities conference that they were going to move the house but that it ended up being cheaper to completely disassemble it. He noted that the BURST*008 house didn't come apart well and ended up just being demolished.
More on MoMA in TH
Home Delivery: Modern Prefab Lives Fast, Dies Young, Leaves Good Looking Corpse
Home Delivery: Wrapping It Up With The Cellophane House
Home Delivery: The Micro Compact Home Comes To America
System3 House Installed at MoMA Home Delivery Exhibition
Home Delivery : BURST*008 : TreeHugger
Home Delivery : Digitally Fabricated Housing : TreeHugger
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Tough to say whether this was market related. In a credit crunch, there's a crunch, but money still exists. Just fewer buyers, so potentially at the right price, these things would have sold. But no sale? Feel bad for these designers that put tons of work into innovative displays.
Also makes me wonder why MOMA didn't go with some of the more marketable, mainstream versions of prefab: MKD, MRP, Hive, LivingHomes, Alchemy, Flatpak, Rocio Romero, re4a, kithaus, etc. Guess it comes down to being an art show ...