New York Times: Prefab Catching On

It’s not your daddy’s prefab anymore. The New York Times recently said that while efficient and ugly postwar housing gave prefab a bad name, the idea that prebuilt homes are necessarily nasty is quickly disappearing. In the US, 95% of homes are built without an architect, so the possibilities for prefab are vast—and getting cheaper. They cite Loftcube, which we told you about a while back, and Flatpak, which we’ll tell you about soon, as two examples of prefab houses with a modern aesthetic. Worried that buying a house off the shelf means it’s going to look like everybody else’s? Fear not: these units are at least as customizable as your average cookie-cutter home in McMansionland, and more and more architects are pitching in to widen the range of sexy prefab houses available. Could 2005 be the year they take over? We’re hopin’. As the year unfolds, keep an eye on our prefab category to get the latest. ::New York Times [by KK]