Churchill’s quick fix after second world war given a modern makeover
In the UK, the word “prefab” conjures images of the cheap, squat, ready-made homes that were Winston Churchill’s quick fix to the scarcity of housing after the second world war.
Today, as the country faces another severe shortage, the government is turning once again to modular, or off-site, construction in an effort to accelerate housebuilding. “Off-site construction could provide a huge opportunity to increase housing supply,” said Gavin Barwell, housing minister.
But off-site housing today bears little resemblance to Churchill’s prefabs — and much about Britain has changed since he was able to winch into place more than 150,000 one-storey prefabricated dwellings in the 1940s, a scheme that still fell far short of his 500,000-unit target. Land is far scarcer, planning rules tighter and the UK housebuilding industry dominated by large commercial companies with a finely honed system of traditional-style construction for profit.
This model is ill-suited to modular construction, partly because housebuilders adapt to the market as they build, said Nigel Hugill, chief executive of the developer Urban & Civic. “The traditional method of construction is almost completely flexible: to stop, all you’ve got to do is put your trowel down. Prefabrication doesn’t have that flexibility, and that’s a substantial disadvantage.”
In addition, housebuilders have become “extremely efficient” at traditional methods, so bringing in off-site units may not save them much time, while modular units are best suited to “tight urban sites”.
That is in evidence on the China Walk housing estate in Lambeth, south London, where 70 apartments are taking shape with unusual speed — the work of Pocket Living, a small developer of affordable homes for sale.
These apartments show how modular building has changed. Units with finished kitchens and bathrooms were brought 60 miles by lorry from a factory in Bedford, hoisted into place and bolted together in fewer than 30 days to create five-storey constructions.
The rapid-fire development on a leafy junction just south of the Thames will look like a regular brick building from the inside and outside; builders are cladding the homes, which will have their first occupants early next year.
