Editor’s note: The arcCA Editorial Board compiled this webography in 2007. Since that time, several of the links have become inactive. In a few cases, we have updated the links at the time of this reposting (April 2021). We have simply delinked the entries for which a current link could not be found, retaining the items in the list for historical interest.
Principal prefab sites:
Fab Prefab: the most robust site out there, and the best for the prefab researcher, as far as we know; strictly neo-modern: www.fabprefab.com.
Prefabcosm: more casual (and less well designed) than Fab Prefab; while its featured projects are also all neo-modern, its links take you quickly into the broader world of, loosely speaking, “non-architect-designed” prefab homes: http://prefabcosm.com.
Prefabs.com: a good compromise, its main (right-hand) column has something of the focus of Fab Prefab, while its left-hand column of paid ads takes you into the rawer commercial world: www.prefabs.com.
Broader sites that cover prefab:
lnhabitat: “a web log devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future”: https://inhabitat.com/?s=prefab.
The Value of Architecture: arcCA author and realtor Brian Linder’s “showcase for architectural properties around the world” has recently featured several architect-designed pre-fabricated houses: www.thevalueofarchitecture.com.
Shipping container buildings:
Shipping Container Architecture: the most robust site for links: home.comcast.net/~plutarch/.
Shipping Container Housing Guide: slimmer but worth a visit: www.shipping-container-housing.com.
Tempo Housing: a proprietary site, “temporary housing based on global standards that can be set up virtually overnight in any situation”: www.tempohousing.com.
Bob Vila, “Home Sweet Container”: yes, the This Old House guy: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/316-home-sweet-container/.
Prefab history:
Tiffany Connors, “How Prefab Houses Work”: https://home.howstuffworks.com/prefab-house.htm.
“Fast and Affordable: a Century of Prefab Housing,” exhibit, Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/04/exhibit-prefab-housing-mann-library-domes-trailers.
Gruenwald, “Industrialization and Architecture” timeline, University of Oklahoma College of Architecture (cached): http://www.ou.edu/class/hgruenwald/teach/5970/597212.htm.
The Old House Web: http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/12270.shtml.
More from one of this issue’s authors:
Carol Burns. “Manufactured Housing: a Double Wide Analysis”: www.gsd.harvard.edu/studios/s97/burns/index.html.
Carol Burns, interview with Bruce Mau and the Institute Without Borders: http://www.massivechange.com/2006/06/27/carol-burns-february-24-2004/.
Originally published 4th quarter 2007 in arcCA 07.4, “preFABiana.”
