Outside the Box: It's time to take another look at
factory-built homes
by
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A floating community of prefabricated homes in the IJburg
district of Amsterdam are affordable and indistinguishable from conventionally
built homes. MARLIES ROHMER ARCHITECTURE + URBAN PLANNING / OTTAWA
CITIZEN
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Our frigid Canadian winters dictate not only how we
construct homes but when. From spring to late fall, building sites are busy and
slow down during the winter months. It makes one wonder why we haven’t adopted
faster building methods when it comes to housing ourselves.
The answer lies in the post-Second World War boom era. Then,
the need to house many immigrants, returning veterans, and their young families
led to a revolution in homebuilding. Old methods had to be filed into history
and new ones invented.
Saving valuable materials and shortening construction time
by coordinating between the sizes of different components were the underlying
principles of many inventions. The modularity of wood frame wall studs, batt
insulation, plywood, and gypsum wallboard helped speed up production.
Yet, the process of building a home remains the same to this
day. Products are shipped to the site and assembled manually by trades.
Canadians have so far failed to follow the lead of other
countries such as Finland or
Sweden with populations and
climate similar to ours and Japan ,
where prefabrication constitutes a significant chunk of the housing market.
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The IJburg project is one of the first to apply land-built
prefabricated housing typologies to floating homes. The homes were built in a
distant plant and then towed to the site and attached to jetties (floating
walkways). AVI FRIEDMAN / OTTAWA CITIZEN
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Why didn’t we embrace factory-built homes? Lack of economy
of scale to justify investment in plants, no significant cost advantage, and
the end product’s poor look made these homes unappealing to consumers and
unattractive to builders.
Changing times and recent trends make it a splendid
opportunity to revisit how and when we construct homes.
A visitor to a Scandinavian neighbourhood constructed with
industrialized methods will not be able to differentiate these homes from other
conventionally built structures. Attractive design, exterior projections,
a variety of building materials and, above all, high-quality construction
explain why these nations like prefab homes.
If you want to see the latest in factory-built dwellings,
visit the IJburg district of Amsterdam in the Netherlands , where the Dutch have
built their homes on water.
Designed by Marlies Rohmer Architecture + Urban Planning,
the project has taken the form of a floating community. Impressively, it has
produced homes at half the construction cost of land-based housing in the city.
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A community built on water, a skating rink is just outside
the door at IJburg in
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The houses offer an alternative to expensive Amsterdam canal houses in
that they are affordable yet close to downtown. This project is one of the
first to apply land-built prefabricated housing typologies to floating homes.
The homes were built in a distant plant and then towed to the site and attached
to jetties (floating walkways).
Three housing types cater to different living situations and
price points. Completely private houses are available; these are detached units
that rely on an individual flotation tank that holds them in place.
Semi-detached houses combine two units on one such tank, while triplexes
combine three residences. This last selection is geared toward the rental
market and is, understandably, the most affordable.
The nature of the community’s master plan allows buyers to
fit their house to their unique needs. It is a wonderfully flexible
arrangement. For example, if a resident wished to have their house face the
sunset or sunrise, it is, incredibly, a feasible option. They can select a
desired location in the lake.
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Three housing types cater to different needs and price
points — singles, semi-detached and triplexes.AVI FRIEDMAN / OTTAWA
CITIZEN
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The units are modular and easy to mass produce, further
saving on construction costs. The flotation tanks are made of double-reinforced
concrete filled with polystyrene. When compared to traditional foundation
types, this is a very inexpensive design.
Walls are prefabricated off-site, making on-site
construction extremely simple. Once the houses are constructed using prefab
parts, multi-house units can be grouped to a single flotation device.
Construction materials are high-quality and long-lasting — and require
minimal maintenance.
A result of quality construction, the floating houses of
IJburg consume an average of 15 per cent less energy than standard homes. Gas,
water and sewage services are supplied by insulated cables and flexible pipes.
A heat pump and heat exchanger provide homes with heating and cooling. The
surrounding water helps control the interior temperature of the buildings.
The mounting cost of housing in Canada combined with the
introduction of new technologies makes it necessary to tackle new demands head
on. Builders need to see prefabrication in much the same way as the car
industry sees automobile assembly. The home can become the high-quality end
product of a new industrial design and production process.
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