A House Is Not a Car (Yet)

The automotive industry has played a crucial role in the thinking around mass prefabricated housing since the early twentieth century. In Australia, a chronic housing affordability crisis, combined with the pending departure of automotive manufacturing, means that the house/car couplet is again unde...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of architectural education (1984) 2017-01, Vol.71 (1), p.10-21
Main Author: Aitchison, Mathew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Scholarship of Design
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The automotive industry has played a crucial role in the thinking around mass prefabricated housing since the early twentieth century. In Australia, a chronic housing affordability crisis, combined with the pending departure of automotive manufacturing, means that the house/car couplet is again under comparison-and not always for the right reasons. The key argument of this article is that a better understanding of the specificities of housing relative to other industries has the potential to release industrialized housing from the trope of a perennial "good idea" that ultimately leads to disappointing results. This might free the industry, allowing it to provide truly innovative and disruptive solutions to the problems surrounding contemporary housing. Further, a richer understanding of the differences between the house and car as industrial products will clarify thinking around the current status of industrialized building production and help chart a more productive future course for housing more generally.
ISSN:1046-4883
1531-314X
DOI:10.1080/10464883.2017.1260915