Dwelling on the Future
When a young Bob Fowler was a student of architecture, he and his peers dreamed of building the sleek and efficient homes of tomorrow.
But more than 40 years later, Fowler, a Pasadena building official, says few of those dreams have materialized. In fact, many of the same materials and methods used to build today’s houses were used to construct his Hacienda Heights home nearly 60 years ago.
“If you compare the advances in home building to the advances in commercial aircraft or automobiles, there has been very little change,” Fowler said.
Fowler is not the only person frustrated with the slow pace of change. Many architects, contractors, building suppliers and environmentalists are struggling to push the home-building business into the 21st century--or at least the latter half of the 20th--with new technologies, construction methods and materials that might make houses more affordable and more comfortable.
There have been a few successes. Homes have become safer and more energy-efficient. Builders have adopted new products, such as high-capacity wiring for computers and telecommunications and factory-made floor and roof systems. Some homes are built with steel instead of wood wall studs and plastic instead of metal plumbing pipes.
In an experimental house in Pennsylvania, walls are made of stiff, heavily insulated foam panels that can be snapped into place, cutting down on wood and energy consumption as well as construction costs. Inside, the same walls can be removed or relocated as the residents’ use of space changes.
But, for the most part, the 1.5 million homes built annually are constructed in much the same manner and with much the same materials--wood, nails and cement--as they were near the turn of the century. Despite the adoption of mass production techniques and advanced technology in other major industries, homes for the most part are still built one at a time on a custom basis.
“The houses that are made today are poorly constructed, energy-inefficient and a waste of resources,” said architect Steve Lee, who has struggled for 25 years to develop more efficient building methods. “We could be doing a hell of a lot better.”
Many home builders, architects and suppliers are at a loss to describe the last major technological improvement in home building. One Orange County developer offered up remote-controlled garage doors as one of the biggest advances. A spokeswoman for Kaufman & Broad, the giant Los Angeles-based home builder, said the company couldn’t name a single major technological change.
Why has home building defied the 20th century’s relentless march toward high tech?
In part, it’s because the same people who embrace the latest in sleek automobiles made of exotic, space-age composite materials won’t look twice at a house that doesn’t have traditional copper plumbing and wood floors. Something about the nature of a home makes people uncomfortable with the unfamiliar, architects and builders say.
Change is also retarded by the fragmented nature of home building. The top 100 builders, for example, make only 15% of the nation’s homes. The builders rely on a complex network of often small subcontractors--say for plumbing--who in turn rely on suppliers for materials. Mortgage lenders, insurers and local building codes also influence the kind of materials and even construction methods used.
As a result, a large number of groups must be won over if a single new product or construction technique is to win acceptance. “One person in the chain can stall the progress of a new idea,” said San Diego architect Don Edson, who is constantly frustrated with inflexible building codes. “We all get exhausted with the process.”
Even the nation’s largest corporations have been stymied when it comes to home-building innovations. It took chemical products giant DuPont nearly 30 years of promoting Corian--a durable, nonporous material for bathroom and kitchen counters--before the product gained acceptance.
The dramatic failure of some high-profile products has also dampened demand for new systems.
Shell Chemical Co. and Hoechst Celanese Corp., for example, have for years had to battle lawsuits brought over a flexible plastic pipe that tended to burst. Solar panels sat unused on the rooftops of many homes after the elimination of a tax credit dried up demand, driving suppliers out of business. The geodesic dome--once hailed by some architects as the housing form of the future--appealed only to a few adventurous home buyers.
In many other countries, a shortage of natural materials, high population density and steep land costs have forced home builders to become more innovative and open to technological change, say domestic designers and builders. In Singapore, for example, computer chips that control heating, lighting and security systems are standard in many apartments and houses.
“The [foreign] builders are more global than we are,” said Los Angeles architect David Martin. “Our client [in Singapore] will fly all over the world trying to understand what the latest thing is. An Orange County home builder . . . is going to do what worked the last time.”
Still, some domestic builders are trying. Near the town of Lancaster, Penn., building-products maker Armstrong World Industries has teamed up with other companies and researchers to construct an experimental house that will expose builders to new materials and more efficient construction methods.
“We are trying to simplify the process as much as possible so that each task can begin and end in a short period of time,” said Lee, the architect and teacher who was a consultant on the project.
The 2 1/2-story Susquehanna House looks like a traditional home on the outside. But the walls consist of hardened foam panels made in a factory and shipped to the site, where workers cut out openings for windows and doors and then snap the panels together to form walls. The walls also serve as built-in insulation.
Inside, a track that contains wiring for electricity, phone services and cable television runs along the base of the walls, permitting users to plug in their telephones, cable television sets and computers anywhere in the room. The interior walls can be moved or removed as the occupants’ needs change, allowing separate children’s bedrooms to be easily combined into a large office or den.
The separate, factory-made components make it easier to construct the house and also minimize the small delays and disruptions that can throw off a project. Under current construction methods, if an electrician is late installing wiring, workers cannot finish sealing off walls with wallboard or plaster. “The house sits there and that adds to the cost,” said Lee, who teaches architecture at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Robert Brusman of Ray-Core Inc., which makes the foam building panels, said the start-up firm has built only a few dozen homes with the product, but he believes industrywide sales could reach $300 million annually in five years. Still, that’s only a sliver of the $30 billion a year spent on building exterior walls.
“In [other] industries, if you come out with the newest thing, people buy them out,” Brusman said. “In the housing business, the builder doesn’t have enough time or money or interest in research and development.”
In suburban Washington, D.C., about 1,000 builders a year visit the National Assn. of Home Builders Research Home Park, where eight single-family homes and townhouses have been constructed and sold to the public with new building systems, materials and products.
One house, for example, has photovoltaic cells--which help transform sunlight into energy--embedded in a metal roof. The walls of another house were built with stiff foam molds filled with concrete, a combination that creates excellent insulation.
The park shows builders how to use new technology and how it will hold up over time, said Larry Zarker, director of marketing for the research center. “A lot of our programs are designed to overcome the fear of being the first one,” he said.
In Southern California, developer Wayne Ratkovich has been exploring ways to provide fast, affordable housing in a region where population growth is limiting the supply of land. The typical single-family home takes up too much space, while traditional high-rise construction is too expensive to generate a profit for the builder, he said.
Ratkovich’s solution: mid-rise buildings--five to eight stories tall--that will be assembled in six months from factory-made concrete parts. The speedy and efficient construction method will permit Ratkovich to sell loft-like apartments for as little as $115,000 a unit. He expects to break ground on the first such building next year in Long Beach.
“The industry needs some innovation,” said Ratkovich, whose firm has been involved primarily in urban commercial development. “When you look at Southern California today and at how we will house future [population] growth, we need to be more imaginative than we have been.”
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Building on the Past
Home construction has not lacked for innovators, but most attempts to increase energy efficiency or make use of available materials have failed to elicit popular appeal. 1971: Plastic-coated balloons in Colorado
1971: Some on pillar in Israel
1977: Tin-can siding in New York
1980: Sod roof planted with grass in Encino
1980: Wood and concrete pyramid in Illinois
1981: Dome with recesses in Iowa
