The UQAM Centre de design presents Prefabrication Perspectives, Architecture Off the Assembly Line, a historic and analytic look at what has been called one of architecture?s oldest new ideas.

Lustron House. Components and systems for prefabricated enameled steel houses.
Carl Gunnar Stradlund (1947)
Photo credit:
Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection
From simple prefabrication of elements, to highly complex industrialized building systems, to off-site construction, today’s architecture is driven by advanced digitization that points to the same concept: the preparation of reproducible components and sub-assemblies in a controlled environment, before being used in the realization of a building. The appeal of prefabrication lies in its potential to increase productivity and quality, while also condensing schedules and reducing costs. Maison des jours meilleurs. Prototype dwelling with a central core on concrete base. Jean Prouvé (1956)
Photo credit:
© CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
Although sometimes decried for its standardized and repetitive patterns, prefabrication also fuelled modernism?s desire for architectural newness. As shown by Konrad Wachsmann and Walter Gropius?s universal joint leveraged to mass produce houses, Kisho Kurokawa and Arata Isozaki’s proposals for aggregating mobile dwelling capsules in aerial cities, and prospective proposals like Moshe Safdie?s Habitat 67, prefabrication idealized by architects has produced som...