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The purpose of this paper is to explore academic papers and reports and present a chronology of the evolution of British low-rise prefabricated housing. The paper provides chronological information for construction and surveying researchers undertaking research in associated areas.

This is a qualitative literature review, providing an exploration and analysis of academic papers and reports on low-rise prefabricated housing.

A substantial literature was discovered. However, there are gaps in the available literature. The history of British construction technology is a rich research area but is under-researched. Prefabricated housing has a long history dating back to the eleventh century. Stigmatised from the failures of housing in the twentieth century, it is being increasingly used again in the twenty-first century when considering mass housing supply.

This paper provides researchers with an overview of the history of low-rise prefabricated housing in Britain. It is not a comprehensive in-depth study; such would require numerous larger individual studies.

From reviewing literature it was evident that there was a broad literature, but there was no single journal publication exploring the evolution of British low-rise prefabricated housing. The research provides an overview, exploration and analysis of the literature while providing a chronology. The evolution of prefabricated housing is chronologically presented. Areas for further research are also recommended.

The concept of employing web-based configuration systems towards mass customization of housing has been implemented by some prefabricated housing companies around the globe, and has become a challenging research area in the last few decades as an outcome of advancements in communication and design technologies. Different methodologies have been employed with the aim of efficiently engaging future homebuyers in the design of their homes. The thrust of this paper is to systematically formalize an advanced configuration system for mass customization of prefabricated housing for a company operating in the Canadian market. The focus is on one floor bungalows which are common within the Province of Quebec. Such housing models targets a specific market sector; elderly couples seeking retirement homes, with the aim of improving affordability through maintaining particular design and production qualities.

Prefabricated housing has become a boom industry across the world; however, the uptake of offsite construction (OSC) approaches in Australian low-rise buildings is rather low compared with high-rise buildings in other countries. This study aims to investigate and analyse the adoption of different levels of OSC approaches and the selection of different procurement options in Australian low-rise residential buildings.

The research objectives were pursued through a mixed research method. An empirical questionnaire survey was carried out with 35 professionals in the Australian building and construction industry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 interviewees and analysed using thematic analysis method in NVivo software.

The research results found that the most suitable OSC level for Australian low-rise buildings is components-based prefabrication and identified the barriers to OSC uptake for each OSC level. The study also showed that the best option of procuring prefabricated products is from Australian manufacturers, followed by Australian suppliers/dealers and overseas manufacturers. Panelised prefabrication and components-based prefabrication are ranked as the most suitable OSC approaches for Australian manufacturers. Modular prefabrication is regarded as the most suitable for overseas manufacturer, while components-based prefabrication is the most suitable for Australian suppliers/dealers.

The selection of various OSC approaches and different procurement options in the low-rise residential buildings are scarcely explored topic, and thus, this study provides knowledge of interest for both researchers and practitioners.

Focusing on small houses has become one of the recent trends in housing design in Japan, as has been observed in many house design works. Periodical coverage can tell that the number of such works has clearly been increasing since the 90s, as compared with the 70s and 80s. The trend of small houses was also observed in the 50s. In those postwar years of economic growth, it was driven by the conditions of the time, such as supply and housing shortages and urban centralization. Today’s social conditions are significantly different from those in the 50s, and naturally, the whole concept of small houses has greatly changed from the past.

In this research, we evaluate the experiments of small houses, from the view of the idea of sustainability and open building concept. Specifically, the study compares the small houses of the 50s and those after 1990 to examine their differences or similarities in terms of size, structure and building systems. And thus clarify how industrialization and standardization reflect on these experiments.

The former period, most were constructed on wood, with traditional construction method. The purpose of design was rather how to adapt the industrialization to the traditional construction and how to realize the modern way of living in the smallest space, than fulfillment of flexibility. Moreover, low cost was also included in the design purpose. In latest examples, the “small” means “small building area” rather than “small space for life and minimal cost for construction” The experimental projects were conducted by the intention exploring new possibilities and diversities of space design, with various highly industrialized materials. The small houses after 1990 can be regarded as experimental efforts to explore new approaches to skeletons within the context of urban tissue.

This study aims to develop a more inclusive working definition and a formalised classification system for offsite construction to enable common basis of evaluation and communication. Offsite manufacturing (OSM) is continuously getting recognised as a way to increase efficiency and boost productivity of the construction industry in many countries. However, the knowledge of OSM varies across different countries, construction practices and individual experts thus resulting into major misconceptions. The lack of consensus of what OSM is and what constitutes its methods creates a lot of misunderstanding across Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry professionals, therefore, inhibiting a global view and understanding for multicultural collaboration. Therefore, there is a need to revisit these issues with the aim to develop a deep understanding of the concepts and ascertain what is deemed inclusive or exclusive.

A state-of-the-art review and analysis of literature on OSM was conducted to observe trends in OSM definitions and classifications. The paper identifies gaps in existing methods and proposes a future direction.

Findings suggest that classifications are mostly aimed towards a particular purpose and existing classification system are not robust enough to cover all aspects. Therefore, there is need to extend these classification systems to be fit for various purposes.

This paper contributes to the body of literature on offsite concepts, definition and classification, and provides knowledge on the broader context on the fundamentals of OSM.

This paper discusses the severe housing affordability problems of certain areas of the UK and the Government's “Key Worker” initiative designed to enable teachers, health workers and other essential workers to purchase housing in these areas. A case study of a proprietary pre‐fabricated housing type, which may provide one solution to the provision of low cost housing, is presented. A detailed analysis of the energy requirements of the case study building and its assessment under the BRE's EcoHomes scheme is provided.

This study explores the historical development of a deprived class in Messina, a Southern Italian city. By means of 85 in-depth interviews and the analysis of the most important phases of the reconstruction following a disastrous earthquake which took place in 1908, the authors investigate the forces that, over the course of a century, shaped the formation process of an “underclass” living in shanties and deprived project areas within the city. The authors’ hypothesis is that the “economy of disaster” and the “shock economy” are not a specific feature of the current period. On the contrary, the elements characterizing the contemporary disaster-related speculative processes were largely active at the very beginning of the past century. This chapter, then, explores the long-lasting social consequences of speculative approaches to the management of disasters, and reflects on the forms of resistance of subaltern populations to an organization of life that started in the aftermath of a remote earthquake, and still affects their living conditions and ways of reproduction.

The use of modern methods of construction (MMC) has been advocated as a way of addressing some of the criticisms of the construction industry made in the Latham and Egan reports. This paper seeks to examine the current position of accommodation that has been built using modern methods of construction (MMC) particularly, volumetric/modular construction.

A literature review is followed by a survey of student occupants of such accommodation in Nottingham.

The main finding was that students chose their accommodation because of its locality to the university and factors that relate to the construction type are not high priorities. The main concern of the residents in the student accommodation is intrusive noise, which may come from external unspecified sources that are not related to the residents in neighbouring rooms. A low level of dissatisfaction indicates that the majority of residents were satisfied living in MMC/Modular build accommodation.

Modular build accommodation, if built within the requirements of its residents, is a satisfactory form of construction for multi‐space accommodation that could be used for future multi‐occupational premises. Modern methods of construction could benefit the UK's construction industry.

Researchers have not widely explored design-based factors that govern buildings’ physical properties and human–building interactions. This paper aims to understand the influence of design-related factors on the time-on-market (TOM) of listed houses and, consequently, study the effect of design features on the desirability of a given house.

This research analyzes a dataset of listed houses, provided by the REALTORS^® Association of Edmonton (RAE) and covers a period extending from January 2009 to August 2019, using Cox proportional-hazards regression model to identify building features that influence people purchasing decisions.

The research findings affirm the statistical insignificance of the price on the TOM compared to other design features, such as the construction method, the installed mechanical systems and cladding materials.

The data used in the analysis comes from a single North American region, i.e. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Also, the data provided by the RAE includes only records that involve a realtor.

The observations of the research presented in this paper influence the housing market players’ decisions about housing designs, mainly those concerned with building new residential dwellings such as speculative builders and designers.

The research novelty stems from two aspects: the medium used for analysis, i.e. Cox proportional-hazards regression model, which allows considering the listed-but-not-sold units and helps to eliminate the survivorship bias that leads to over-optimistic outcomes; and the assessment of design-related features which allows to understand people’s preferences in design alternatives.

The study analyses collaborative practice in offsite manufacturing (OSM) housing supply chains, focusing specifically on supply chains driven by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study’s analysis builds on previous work where we argued that collaboration in OSM housing construction comprises nine elements. In this study, the authors demonstrate empirically that SMEs enact these collaborative practice elements in distinct ways, foregrounding key elements over others. One core model and two sub-models of collaboration emerge from our two case studies.

The study analyses two SME-driven supply chains using qualitative case study techniques. Data were gathered through 12 semi-structured interviews conducted in two housing construction supply chains: one in South Australia, Australia, and another in Tasmania, Australia.

A comparative case study of SMEs shows that collaboration in OSM supply chains has a number of common elements, including a champion for innovation, investment in long-term relationships, resourceful use of limited assets and physical co-location. However, SMEs can also enact these elements through a range of diverging collaborative strategies that can be distilled into different models: stable relationality and dynamic innovation.

Findings provide a compelling empirical basis for arguing that SMEs can successfully lead OSM supply chains if key collaborative practice elements are strategically mobilised in ways that are suited to their strengths and limitations. The study therefore interrogates the widely held and often limiting assumption that OSM can only be driven by large organisations with access to capital assets, capacity to invest and undisputed bargaining power.