Prefab: back of the way

Prefab is suddenly everywhere and seems like a whole new phenomenon. But this is not so; the use of prefabricated building components goes way back. The first mention of a prefabricated building dates back to the 12th century. Norsemen at the time supplied building parts that together formed a castle.

It is written in the history books that buildings were erected on the prefabricated method in North America in 1624. And around 1800, a demountable hospital is said to have been built somewhere in the West Indies. Many more examples can be found here and there.

After 1850, prefabricated construction really became widespread. The demand for housing was huge in the U.S. state of California, which had everything to do with the Gold Rush. A large department store saw that gap in the market and went with prefab. They offered the prefab homes through their catalog. That way a home cost only a quarter of a traditionally built home. Whoever ordered a house from the catalog received it as a kit. The success was enormous. The department store sold half a million prefabricated homes over a period of about thirty years. These were of such high quality that most of them have been preserved. 

Move-in houses 

There are beautiful historical examples in the Netherlands as well. Around 1900, wooden houses were manufactured in Sweden that were easy to assemble. Rijkswaterstaat ordered a number of them about a hundred years ago. They had them delivered and assembled in North Holland for personnel working there on the Zuiderzee Works. Those prefab houses were called take-home houses. A pristine one still stands in Den Burg on Texel. In 1927, an engineer from Rijkswaterstaat moved into this service house. The house with the name Flevo is still there. It received monument status because it is of cultural-historical value, and because of its importance in view of its architectural history.

Post-war necessity
The post-World War II period also saw a great need for housing, including in Britain. Many cities were in ruins, and prefabrication made it possible to build replacement houses in a very short time. They were actually meant to be temporary, but they were used for (tens of) years. Even today, some of them are still occupied. 

Beginning in the 1960s, interest in modular and prefabricated homes waned. People called prefabricated houses block boxes and found them impersonal and cheap. For a couple of decades, prefab went on hold. 

Buzzword 

Only to come out of that - not so long ago - as well. Prefab is the buzzword in construction right now. There are a number of reasons for that. The labor market is an important one. Traditional construction requires a lot of manpower and there isn't any right now. With prefabricated building elements, fewer "hands" are needed on the construction site; it's a matter of connecting the parts together, and that gives quick results. Failure costs are also less, and construction is faster and more efficient, with less material waste and fewer emissions.

A true prefab revolution is underway, in which all processes (including planning and production) can be coordinated using software. Nobody can ignore prefab anymore; every party in the chain is working on it. Some 30% of construction is now done using prefab. So precast is back, and we can probably say now: precast is here to stay.