Pre-fab modernism?

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend the first open house at the Marmol-Radziner Prefab modular modern home factory in downtown LA. I’ve been excited about prefab for a couple of years now (after studying urban architecture and theory in college and getting very interested in cohousing thereafter), so I’ve been passively keeping tabs on this trend lately. After signing up for this tour, I realized Amy’s parents were going to be in town during it; delightfully, they were interested in joining. So we had an outing.

I couldn’t believe how many cars were in the makeshift parking lot for the reservation-only visit – easily 150 – and we met at least one person who had flown in for the tour. The factory itself was fascinating – basically they build tractor-trailer-sized steel frames in a yard out back, set them up on jacks, and wheel them slowly down two huge lanes where they’re prepped, coated, hung with SIP’s (Structural Insulated Panels, which are basically oreo sandwiches made of plywood and Styrofoam that offer plug-and-play rigidity and insulation) and/or windows and doors, and then have all the interior components (electric, ducts) installed. The third lane has areas for metal, wood (e.g., cabinetry), and materials prep. Cool stuff – makes you want to go learn to weld.

On the other hand, we were all shocked at how much custom work each of these modules actually involves. (There are some photos here.) Amy, her mom Julie (who has a sharp designer’s eye), her dad Jim (who’s got good engineering sense), and I spent much of the tour pointing out all the handwork – not just in the cabinets and trim but also in the most basic structural components. Four guys for several days to sand and coat one steel frame. Sheetrock and electrical installed the usual way in the interiors. 80 people working full-time for three and half months on one house – with hand-cut openings, custom welding, nails, and caulking everywhere. This does not fit any but the most literal definitions of pre-fab: Basically they’re building you a custom house, only they’re building it in an urban warehouse for a modest cost savings, and then shipping it at great expense to your site. And at upwards of $300 a square foot installed (assuming you don’t go too far), it’s hard to see the benefits as being worth the constraints, even in the epicenter of one of the frothiest real-estate markets in recent history.

As Jim put it, you hate to be negative about someone taking so much risk to be innovative. And their designs are stunning, especially in the context of an appropriate site, and managed carefully down to the details of the toilet-paper dispenser. (See photos of their prototype Desert House via FabPrefab.) But my line of the day was, “This is what you get when you put an architect in charge of a factory.”

Until it’s trending toward a price per square foot that makes it attractive relative with conventional construction, this won’t be interesting to me in any real way. I’d feel much more celebratory if the good folks at M/R were more focused on constraint-based development and positioning this as a prototype aiming at $150 a s/f by 2010 - and if all the Dwell magazine types stopped heaping praise on them until they did.