Evening star., 1937-04-17
ASSPRODUCT|ON
HOUSING FAILURE,
DECLARE EDITORS
Architectural Forum Offers
New Approach to
Problem.
INTEGRATED HOUSE
FOR COST REDUCTION
Form of Prefabrication Which
Does Not Involve Compile
tion in Shop.

Prefabricated housing has so far
failed conspicuously in what it set
out to do-provide mass-produced
housing at low cost-in the opinion of
the editors of the Architectural Forum,
who in their April issue, out today,
offer a wholly new approach to the
problem, to take place within the
existing framework of the building
industry"
The early theoreticians of prefab-
rication stand convicted of loose
thinking by the results, or, rather,
lack of results, which their theories
have produced" the Forum finds, and
adds that there must have been
something radically wrong with way
Of thinking which confidently promises
to start shelling out mass-produced
houses overnight at price everybody
could afford and which failed con-
spicuously to do So"
''It takes more than 10000 parts to
build house-more than 500 opera
tions, 20 individual skills or trades,
over 400 items Of equipment and is
or more separate contracts" the mag
aNne states, and while prefabrication
produced IAN approach" when it at
tempted to standardize these parts
and reduce the operations, it Jumped
the track" when it tried to put its
ideas into practice.
Since the house is long-term
proposition, adaptable to improve
ments as they come along, manufac-
turers have turned out these improve
ments in form readily installed in
old or new homes. The biggest mis-
take prefabricators made" according
to the Forum, was to assume that
manufacturers were prepared to pro-
duce all the parts of a single house"
and were willing to limit their mar
ket exclusively to new houses" when
their biggest market lies in parts and
improvements for homes already built.
Old House Market.
Should the manufacturer thus limit
his production to standard sized"
equipment, old houses could not use
any OF 1t, and the vast clubhouse i'm
provement market would be lost to
him.
Automobiles are more efficiently as
sembled than houses, prefabricators
point out, but they have the advan-
tags Of mobility and are thus suscep-
tible to complete shop assembly. And
20 far there are no signs that the
American people are prepared to &C
cept permanent housing in a form
equally transportable and therefore
susceptible to the same production
scheme as automobiles. The prefabri-
Gated house, in the form of a truck
able unit, is still long way Off"
The "Integrated House." Architec-
tural Forums fresh approach to
cost reduction, sis the name which
should be applied to the kind of pre-
fabrication which does not involve
the completion of the house in the
shop. But is it not the change in
name, but the change in thinking
implied in the new name, which is
important"
1ntegration calls for mass-produc-
ton Of parts not by any single CATCH
all organizations, but by the existing
manufacturing organizations of the
building industry. To do this it calls
first upon the architect ito start
things of by providing a basis in de-
sign'-a basic unit Of measurement
OF which larger units are easily made
up and which Is easily divisible into
smaller units.
Then it is up to the manufacturer
to produce standard parts conforming
to this basic design, readily inter-
changeable, 50 that kitchen elements,
for example, manufactured by one
firm, can be purchased with the as
surance that they will Immediately fit
flooring or wall units produced by an
entirely different plant.
After the architect and manufac-
turer have produced their basic de-
sign and their interchangeable and
multi-purpose parts, it is up to the
banker, states the Forum, to "encour-
age integration by favoring loans on
new property evidencing the inte-
grated method. He may do this be-
cause integration not only cuts costs
and gives more for the money, but
also constitutes protection against
early obsolescence, makes it possible
for the owner to keep his property
up to date and to incorporate new I'M
provements.
Function and Features.
The reakor must sell integration
TO the home-buying public, express its
In terms the public can