Rapid Home Construction - The idea

I see two problems with modern housing. First, we’re fundamentally constructing houses the same way we’ve been doing it for at least 50 or 100 years. We can build a computer chip with billions of transistors (each only a few dozen atoms long) for a hundred bucks. Yet, building a house still involves going to the hardware store and buying lumber and nails. Second, houses are not designed to be taken apart, and yet, the median house age is 36 years.

The way forward is to continue to move in the direction of prefab houses and modular home construction but with an emphasis on energy-saving homes made of reusable materials. The trend is to build modules of the house in a controlled environment (i.e. a factory) where everything can be measured, cut, and constructed accurately. But, the materials used now are fundamentally the same: wood and drywall. These should be replaced with better materials like insulating concrete foam (ICF) and steel (at least for exterior walls).

My vision is that architects could design houses using modern materials and custom CAD software. The goal of the software would be to take the burden off of the architect to calculate the structural and energy efficiency properties of the house and let the architect focus on the design. The software would also determine how best to make the house into modules as well as keep track of what level of LEED certification the house is on track to receive.

Once the building is designed, virtual tours would be rendered for potential buyers. After a copy of the house is ordered, a team of skilled laborers would construct all of the pieces using high precision tools. The pieces would then be built in about a week and then shipped to the construction site. The assembly would only take another week as very little would need to be done on-site.

One thing that would be important is lego-like construction. This clearly makes assembly quick, but it could also make easy work of disassembly. Once a house has outlived its usefulness, it should be taken apart (not torn down). If the primary materials were ICF and steel, they would be recycled and nearly nothing would go into a landfill. If the foundation didn’t need to be remade, another house could be built there using the reprocessed recycled materials.