Mass Production Versus Individualisation

Fagan, Des (2023) Mass Production Versus Individualisation. In: Future Home. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781032414676 (In Press)

Abstract

Shortages of land, materials and labour have driven up the cost of house building since the 2008 global financial crisis, lowering contractors' profit margins, resulting in less incentive for house builders to build. Consequently, as demand outstrips supply, market conditions favour established volume house builders, resulting in reduced buyer choice and rising concerns that contractors may opt to prioritise higher profit, mass-produced, low variation housing designs. This chapter examines how future technology can be leveraged to inject individualisation into the mass production process of housing, intercepting the default to low variation housing. This is explored through case studies that demonstrate how parametric customer design configurators, machine learning, and modular fabrication methods can be vertically integrated to redress the problem of low variation in volume house building, maintaining profitability in the process through production at scale.