Here is a case in point. We have all seen the glossy travel magazines featuring gorgeous villas in Bali or Phuket or other exotic locations in Southeast Asia. Very often the design of these houses employs a so-called open floor plan, which means fewer walls and often high ceilings supported by columns or minimal framing. The end result is a wonderful airy feel to these homes where the line between inside and outside is blurred a little and one can feel close to the lush equatorial greenery that is such a big part of life in these latitudes. You can imagine walking across immaculate marble flooring while soft rain falls feet away from you, over early morning coffee.

Do you consider as you observed this luxuriant scene that the marble in the floor of the Bali villa was very likely sourced from a quarry on a nearby island for 1/20 the cost that one would pay for the same stone in New York City? Or that the thatched, conical roof was done by a local specialist for a price that would make you blush?

The villa example admittedly has little to do with prefabricated construction, but I have used it just to make a point about what constitutes luxury, extending even to a luxury prefab home. Isn’t it possible that homes can make use of prefabricated construction techniques that leave us as impressed by the overall design impact as structures that employ materials and techniques that simply cost more? Certainly mobile homes or modular homes are not necessarily as irrevocably low-end as they used to be; it’s actually easy to find builders of luxury prefab houses that are absolutely worthy of the term.

I would contend that, as people who have means are often very environmentally conscious, we can expect to find prefab techniques that use less in the way of volume of raw materials and also energy, to become more desirable over time. Architects should relish the chance to do much more with less, or at least less waste, extending especially to luxury prefab homes.