Prefabrication: The Natural Construction Process

Prefabrication is one of our oldest and most successful manufacturing techniques. In all forms of construction, apart from reinforced concrete and masonry, it dominates. On an industrial basis it is accepted in civil engineering, ship building, car and aircraft manufacture without question. For smaller equipment including consumer goods and computers, modular methods of design and manufacture dominate. It is only in the construction industry, perhaps with its tradition of hand craft work on site, with stone masons, bricklayers, welders and carpenters, that we find that it is not always the market leader. This lecture is intended to give a philosophical justification of prefabrication, to celebrate its successes in construction and to show the part it must play if the construction process is to be re-engineered.