Modern Housing Solutions for Hawaii: Utlizing Prefabrication Technologies to Develop High Quality Urban Housing in Hawaii

Abstract

The core characteristics of Hawaii have long created a difficult market for the design and construction of modern high-quality homes. Although strategically located in the Pacific and blessed with a lush, resourceful environment, Hawaii is relatively far from other industrial centers and has a limited supply of land. Land and building materials are often cost prohibitive, and the quality of housing suffers accordingly. Large developers have a distinct advantage in this environment and they continue to build low-quality homes that they can sell for premium prices. As a result, the residents of Hawaii consistently get “less” housing for “more” cost relative to other markets in the United States. This project investigates how modern prefabrication technologies in architecture can be utilized to create high-quality, high-performance homes at lower costs in Honolulu, Hawaii’s urban center. Whereas previous prefabrication efforts have required mass production or standardization to be economically viable, advances in digital design and fabrication are now allowing architects to design and build cheaper and in non-conventional ways. These emerging technologies will help architects introduce creative but cost-effective housing solutions appropriate to Hawaii in a market dominated by generic and limited developer-driven housing. A townhouse prototype design for Honolulu will be proposed that utilizes structural concrete insulated wall and floor panels as a modern prefabricated building element. This design will illustrate the benefits and opportunities offered by prefabrication tools and technologies such as panelized building systems, building information modeling, computer numerical controlled fabrication, and digital parametric design variation.