I often find myself explaining what my house will be. The easy part is describing the look – mid-century inspired, butterfly roof, modern and clean lines, lots of windows, etc. What I find harder to answer are questions around the design and construction.
Growing up, my grandparents were part of the 70’s ‘mobile’ home boom in Florida. These houses were no more than a series of interconnected trailers placed on concrete block foundations and linked to municipal water, sewer and electrical. Hardly mobile, but they still felt like living in a trailer. Another relative, an uncle, ordered his home from a catalog and it was built from delivered parts. I also have a cousin who built a house that arrived in four pieces (you’ve might have seen these half or quarter homes on the highway, eating up a lane and a half) and was assembled on site in a few days. My home is none of these, but I often find myself over-explaining what it is.
Today, there are a lot of terms to describe various types of building – prefab, modular, kit, manufactured, systems built, etc. My grandparents home was a form of manufactured home. 100% factory built, mostly of steel, no real customizable options, and could be moved (if needed). Modular best describes my cousin’s home as it was built in sections off-site and assembled on-site with a traditional foundation. It didn’t give much layout flexibility since the modules had to be restricted to the maximum size that could be transported, but did offer some interior and exterior choices. The uncle’s home was more of a kit, where all the parts and pieces were delivered and someone needed to put them together. In that case you get what you ordered and layout customization was not really an option. Any of those homes were prefab in that pieces of the house, or complete modules, were built remotely and assembled on site. They also sometimes carried with them the stigma of being of questionable quality, temporary, or unsafe in extreme weather. You can also talk to any number or people and find all the above terms being used to describe the same thing – but building has evolved a great deal since my relatives’ past homes.
Stillwater Dwellings, my home designer/builder, describes their product as ‘Modern Prefab Homes’. But when I say ‘prefab’ to most people, I get that look of ‘so you’ll be living in a trailer or converted shipping container’. While I don’t actually care what people think about most things, but as someone invested in this building type, I do feel the need to educate or update people’s thinking around modern prefab construction. Do all of Stillwater’s homes conform to a certain design style? Yes, and I feel that is at the core of their product – well-designed homes offering a specific look, but with many personalization options. Can you simply select a floor plan from their catalog of proven designs? Yes, but any of them can be customized to a great degree (I’m living proof of that). Are specific pieces of the home built in a factory and delivered to my site? Yes, and having pieces constructed in a controlled environment to exacting standards is a huge benefit that offers both quality and efficiency. Are specific finish packages offered? Yes, and there is a large group of people who want everything taken care of, but my experience with Stillwater has been one of using the packages as a base, and then really changing anything I want. For all intents and purposes, my project is a custom built home. But lately, I like to describe it as a systems built home.
Systems built is a newer definition that further muddies the water, but I also think it adds clarity to the range of what is considered prefab. It is also a great description of the building technique used in my home – and leads most people to ask, “what’s that?” – opening the door to my evangelism. The components of a systems built home can be used across a variety of home designs within the style of home being built – making it efficient and lowering overall costs versus building every piece from scratch on site. While these components are built in a factory, they offer many ways that they can be used in a design – offering a huge degree of customization of floor plans and finish options. Ultimately, I feel a systems built approach offers the best of all worlds in that I get a design I love, the way I want it, offering both precision and speed over more traditional building techniques. And given the approval process of building in LA, I’ll take whatever time savings I can get.
NOTE: These last two posts were written during the summer, but for some reason didn’t go live with the auto scheduler feature. I’ve been traveling a lot for work (weeks at a time) and didn’t notice, so while it seemed like a really dead Summer, I actually did have something to say.