| Abstract: | Despite the market significance of the ‘mobile home’ — which is in fact a factory-made dwelling that can be transported as a complete unit for permanent location on a site — the technology involved has attracted little interest from the orthodox building industry. A research and development project in America, ‘Project Manufactured Housing Industry’ (PMHI), suggests that such disinterest is misplaced. We invited the author to explain some of the possible lessons to be drawn from the project. He discusses here how alternative materials and different structural concepts — such as post and beam, stressed skin and monolithic volumetric components — are compatible with the already cost-effective technology and offer potential for the use of these factory-made units in higher-density and high-rise forms. Professor Bernhardt is President of the consultancy firm PIIHS which is responsible for the R &; D project described. |
