British post-war temporary prefab houses
Encyclopedia
British post-war temporary prefab houses were the major part of the delivery plan envisaged by war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill
in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944
, to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II
housing shortage.
Taking the details of the public housing
plan from the output of the Burt Committee
formed in 1942, the Conservative Party's
Churchill proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,000 prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years within five years of the end of World War II
. The eventual bill of state law, agreed under the post-war Labour Party
government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee
, agreed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150m.
Through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works
, the programme got off to a good start, but foundered through a combination of commercial rivalry, public concern, and pure cost. More expensive to build than conventional houses, the envisaged excess production capacity of materials was taken up at a quicker rate through Britain's post-war export drive to reduce her burgeoning war-debts.
In the end, of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 when the programme officially ended, only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed. Today, a number survive, a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years.
from great altitudes, which had a huge effect on both the number and quality of available housing stock. Estimates at the time suggest that the minimum shortage was some 200,000 houses nationally. The result was the duplication of a strategy deployed by the post–World War I government of a country-wide investment programme in a national public house building scheme.
In envisaging the problem, Prime Minister Winston Churchill
had set up the cross-party Burt Committee
in 1942. They sent British engineers to the United States
from late 1943, looking at how America - a world leader in prefab construction, thanks to its war focus - intended to address its needs for post-war housing.
The outcome of the Burt Committee was that it favoured prefabricated housing as a solution to the problems. In a radio broadcast in March 1944, as the War in Europe was concluding
, Churchill announced a Temporary Housing Programme, known officially as the Emergency Factory Made or EFM housing programme. The vision was for a Ministry of Works (MoW)
emergency project to build 500,000 ‘new technology’ prefabricated temporary houses directly at the end of the war:
This vision and promise passed into law as the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944
, which planned to build 300,000 prefab houses in Britain over the next four years, with a structural lifetime of between 10 and 15 years. In fact just over 150,000 were built.
However, rather than relying on private sector investment as in the United States, the new Labour Party
government of Clement Attlee
, having been part of a war government that deployed large and efficient production schemes to win the war, simply applied the same theory to this problem. The plan was also in part an economic solution, as it reduced the need for a post-war government laden with debt having to subsidise commercial operations, a problem avoided by simply encouraging them to work together to design and produce the paid-for solutions. The solution providers were hence already equipped for mass manufacture, and made capable of post-war transition through fulling a great economic need.
But the scale of the problem was highly under estimated. At the end of the war, it was found by survey that more than three million houses had been damaged by enemy bombing, almost a quarter of all homes in the country. Most of the damaged stock was in London and the southeast, particularly in areas hit hard by Hitler's vengeance weapons. Although the building trade had taken a beating, with many of its skilled labourers killed whilst on duty as foot soldiers, the recovery in labour levels was boosted by high post-war unemployment. The envisaged shortages of basic building supplies did initially exist, but were quickly turned around: basic supplies of sand, gravel and clay to produce bricks and cement were natural resources within the geography of Great Britain, they just needed extracting.
By 1951, the EFM housing programme and its off-shots had added one million council houses, resulting in 15% of all the dwellings in Britain became publicly owned, more than the proportion in the communist Soviet Union
at that time.
. Although essential at the time to ensure quality, the way in which they were implemented from a regulatory view point defined and restricted the whole of the British construction industry, until the reforming non-centralist government of Margaret Thatcher
some 35 years later.
All approved prefab units had to have a minimum floor space size of 635 square feet (59 m²), and be a maximum of 7.5 feet (2.3 m) wide to allow for transportation by road.
The most innovative creation of the MoW was what was termed the "service unit," something which the MoW initially specified all designs had to include. A service unit was a combined back-to-back prefabricated kitchen that backed onto a bathroom, pre-built in a factory to an agreed size. It meant that the unsightly water pipes, waste pipes and electrical distribution were all in the same place, and hence easy to install.
The service unit also contained a number of innovations for occupants. The house retained a coal-fire, but it contained a back boiler
to create both central heating
as well as a constant supply of hot water. For a country used to the pleasures of the outside lavatory and tin bath, the bathroom included a flushing toilet and man-sized bath with hot running water. In the kitchen were housed such modern luxuries as a built-in oven, refrigerator and baxi water heater: items we now take for granted.
All prefabs under the housing act came pre-decorated in magnolia
, with gloss-green on all additional wood, including the door trimmings and skirting boards.
Often very American is appearance and style, to speed construction many were developed on the side of municipal parks and green belt
s, giving their residents who had most often come from cramped shared rooms in inner cities, the feeling of living in the rural countryside.
, many were rejected from the conceptual stage, such as the British Powerboat Company's proposal for the Jicwood all laminated plywood design; while others were only dismissed after the prototype stage, such as the steel framed Riley. However, a few were approved after testing for construction:
. With a floor area of 616 square feet (57.2 m²), and an estimated cost of £600 constructed, and £675 fully furnished. It included a prefabricated slot-in kitchen and bathroom capsule, that included a pre-installed refrigerator
. The proposed rent was 10 shillings a week for a life of ten years.
based construction magnate Sir Edwin Airey
, it was easily recognisable by its precast concrete columns and walls of precast ship-lap concrete panels. Due to its variation of design, available with a flat or pitched roof, and with variations for rural or urban sites; it became one of the most prolific of the permanent designs.
, the Arcon was an asbestos-clad variant of the Portal, with the same prefabricated kitchen and bathroom capsule. It had a longer life, but also came with a higher cost of construction. The later rolled top roofed Arcon Mk5 was developed by Edric Neel. 38,859 were constructed through the programme.
bungalow assembled from four sections, each to be delivered to the site on a lorry, fully furnished right down to the curtains. The proposed rate of production of complete houses was to be an incredible one every twelve minutes. This was possible because the completely equipped and furnished AIROH could be assembled from only 2,000 components, while the aircraft it would replace on the production line required 20,000. The parents of future Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock
were allocated at AIROH, on which he commented:
Although impressive, the AIROH by 1947 was costing £1,610 each to produce, plus costs of the land and installation. However, as the design was so easy to produce, 54,500 AIROHs were constructed.
, an association of steel producers, was formed in 1934 in order to provide central planning for the industry. It was prominent in coordinating output through the War.
Post-war, BISF became key in the new housing programme. It sponsored a solution for a permanent steel framed housing to a design by architect Sir Frederick Gibberd
, who also designed the Howard House.
The BISF is of a conventional design, with simple architectural devices of projecting window surrounds encasing Crittall Hope
windows, and differing cladding to the upper and lower stories deal with the junction between components in an understated fashion. Traditional materials could be incorporated or simulated, for example a brick cladding to the lower storey, or steel sheet profiled to match timber weatherboarding to the upper. The BISF house also uses tried and tested methods, with a simple over-site slab ground floor and render on metal lath cladding.
Produced by the British Steel Homes company, the BISF was a successful design in numerical terms, thanks to the backing of its trade sponsors, who could ensure a supply of steel. The BISF also benefited from a guaranteed order of 30,000 units given directly by the Government in 1941.
Mortgages for BISF houses are available from a limited number of Lenders who now view such properties to have a similar lifespan to that of a traditional brick constructed house.
hipped roof
.
The first floor is PRC clad over a single-storey concrete frame, while the type1 house has the Mansard roof over timber trusses. Internal walls are made of PC wall block or brick. So successful was the design, 30,000 Cornish Unit houses were eventually constructed.
However the roofs and wall insulation incorporated asbestos
, while the wooden frame-based construction means that as the concrete decays the two parts tend to separate, resulting in large amounts of internal cracking. The major defects are:
, were formed in 1940 by the Gloster Aircraft Company
to build the Albermarle
aircraft designed by Armstrong Whitworth
. Post-WW2, the companies parent Hawker Siddeley kept it open to supply prefab houses and bungalows to the MoW. After their MoW work finished, they continued for a period exporting their buildings to Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay into the 1960s. Their designs included:
The company later developed an aluminium house for the Margaret MacMillan Memorial Fund, for use in tropical overseas relief missions.
, the poured concrete substitutes for the inner blockwork walls of traditional housing. Solid wall types 225 millimetres (8.9 in) thick cast in lightweight concrete, rendered externally. Cavity wall types have an inner leaf of at least 100-125mm thick concrete.
by the Orlit Co, resulting in most houses being located in Scotland.
On site construction was based on a foundation which supported pre-cast concrete columns at fixed intervals, supporting concrete beams fixed to the columns, resulting in a virtually a monolithic frame. Faced externally with large storey-high concrete slabs, and internally with interlocking foamslag blocks. Internal partitions are constructed of breeze blocks finished in plaster, as is the foamslag internal cladding. The floors are constructed of pre-cast concrete flooring units, with timber flooring on timber runners.
Due to both the speed of construction and the quality of production, over time the PRC deteriorates, particularly at construction joints and junctions between components, with a gradual reduction in structural effectiveness. This resulted in the Orlit designated as defective under the Housing Defects Act 1984, and hence a majority of mortgage lenders will not give any form of mortgage on them.
The Phoenix, designed by Laing and built by themselves as well as partners McAlpine
and Henry Boot, it looked much like an AIROH with a central front door, but far less aesthetically pleasing. A 2bedroom in-situ preform design with steel frame, asbestos clad walls, and an innovative roof of tubular steel poles with steel panels attached. Like all designs, it came pre-painted in magnolia, with green highlights on frames and skirting. Phoenix prefabs cost £1,200 each constructed onsite, while the specially insulated version designed for use on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides
cost £2,000.
reinforced concrete
panels, themselves made in factories, before construction is enabled onsite. Reema houses come in two forms:
Due to structural degradation and the use of asbestos
in the wall and roof insulation, both are difficult to obtain a mortgage on today. The Reema Hollow Panel is listed universally as defective after a Government sponsored investigation and the subsequent Housing Defects Act 1984, while the Reema Conclad is often mis-recognised as a Hollow Panel.
exported 5,000 prefabricated houses to England and 2,100 to France. The design was adapted by the MoW from a standard Swedish kit, with the all-timber houses arriving in flat sections, and then stored at the docks for allocation, often to rural areas in support of farm workers. The first of these houses were built at Abbots Langley
, Hertfordshire
, in January 1946. The Swedish Government gifted 100 timber-framed houses to Scotland, which were erected in two locations in Edinburgh
.
. A wooden frame designed bungalow, over clad with precast concrete
panels. 19,014 Tarrans were erected under the Temporary Housing act, but one- and two-storey variants were built in some numbers afterwards.
timber-frame with asbestos wall sections, it was based on a military wartime office design. With dimensions of 23 in 6 in (7.16 m) by 19 in 7 in (5.97 m), the first two versions included the MoW standard kitchen/bathroom service unit, plus a lounge; Mk3's had a central entrance over the original side door. Uni-Seco had appointed in 1943 the Czehzolvakian
emigre George Fejer as an industrial designer, who on a part-time basis helped out with their kitchen design. Fejer later worked with Arthur Webb and George Nunn at Hygena
to create the UK style of fitted kitchen, based on the principles of the Frankfurt kitchen
. Approximately 29,000 Uni-Seco units were constructed. The Excalibur estate in Catford
, London Borough of Lewisham
is the UK's largest residual estate of prefabs, presently consisting of 187 Uni-Seco bungalows.
. Using a common storey-level precast reinforced concrete panels, they produced various updated versions of their bungalow and twin-storey house variations. Using metal bracing within the cavity and metal joists connected at column joints, the PRC columns act as mullions. Copper straps tie the inner panel to outer PRC panel on earlier variant, while later the copper strap fixed to column holding just outer PRC cladding panels.
Although the design incorporates significant steelwork resulting in fair current structural condition, the concrete used in casting is decaying, and resultantly leaks chlorides. This results in internal staining through panel joints, and corrosion of the metal reinforcing and straps.
A Unity structures bungalow originally located in Amersham
is preserved at the Chiltern Open Air Museum
.
being a house builder, focused on both design but also speed and ease of construction. Their method used "no-fines" concrete, the composition of which used no fine aggregates
. Using huge reuseable moulds, they were held in place as the concrete for the entire outer structure was poured in one operation. The ground floor was also concrete, while the first floor was made of wooden floorboards. Interior walls were a mixture of conventional brick
and blockwork construction. Wimpey's design was particularly successful, resulting in many thousands built, and still occupied today.
, in 1944 to demonstrate to the construction industry, parliament and the media that the principles of their standards, and show that houses and flats could be built of concrete as well as brick. The highlight of the show was the live construction over 2 days of a Sir Frederick Gibberd designed BISF, under the watchful 24-hour eyes of the media.
The MoW then held a public exhibition of five types of prefab at the Tate Gallery
in London, in 1944:
This proved so popular, that the Tate held two follow up exhibitions in 1945. In April 1945, in a public relations
exercise, an Arcon was completed and handed over to its new occupants by 22 men in under eight hours, and in May an AIROH was erected on a bombed site in London’s Oxford Street
in just four hours.
While the cost of the prefabs was met directly by the MoW, the sites and utility infrastructure costs were the responsibility of the local authority. The 1944 Act had envisaged problems in obtaining access to sites quickly and hence slowing the programme, and so gave councils the authority to claim sites where two or more prefabs could be constructed. Councils were also given power over the site once identified, even before purchase was completed. The programme delivered quick housing, with properties going up at the rate in some authorities at the rate of 1.75 units per site per day, and the 100,000th house completed in January 1947 in Clapham
, South London
.
However, the cost of the programme at £150m met with opposition at many levels, both politically and economically. In August 1945 the Portal was abandoned for lack of steel, while the Uni-Seco was effectively stopped from production from the middle of 1946 through lack of supply of wood. It was stated that both the Arcon and AIROH were above budget: the British prefabs in both manufacture and construction costs combined turned out to be more costly than traditionally built brick houses, while the American sourced units were cheaper. The population allocated prefabs were also concerned that prefabs were a permanent over a temporary solution, with the postwar radio comedy Stand Easy! with Charlie Chester
's creating popular skit-chants on the subject, including:
As the economy began to recover, the cost of the unwanted post-ware excess production reduced and hence costs of manufacture rose sharply. When the Chancellor
allowed the pound to freely float against the dollar from 1947 onwards, a programme costing 60% of government income was severely cut back.
NOTES:
The quality of a steel framed prefab house, which can be suffering from rust, or a wooden house from rot, can be found in the footings of the structure where it meets the foundation slab. With checks undertaken by a qualified and certified housing surveyor, the structural integrity of the house can be quickly ascertained through exposure of the footings: if they are not rusty or rotted, the house is normally structurally sound.
The second problem with non-refurbished houses is the use of asbestos
in the original construction, particularly in the roof structure. Again, a qualified surveyor should be able to ascertain if asbestos is present, what type, and how to address its removal. There are a number of central and local government grants available for domestic asbestos removal which should cover most of the cost.
The third problem with the survival or prefabs in the 21st century is that of style. Never seen as aesthetically pleasing, the tight building regulations meant they also came with reasonable sized rooms and gardens. Modern house construction can create around 35 living spaces per acre, while often the prefabs will be sat on site layouts of less than 20. This, together with the age of the properties, makes redevelopment of mass prefab sites a distinct advantage to councils and housing association
s. Hence, every year since 2000, the number of prefabs remaining has approximately halved.
Bristol
has one of the largest remaining populations of prefab housing stock, and it also remains one of the most diverse. As a war time production centre for both aircraft, engines and explosives, it was easy to reach for Luftwaffe
bombing, and hence had a large post-war need for new housing stock. There remain around 700 examples of Uni-Seco, Phoenix, Tarron and roll-topped Arcon MkV's. The stock diversity has resulted in English Heritage
selecting 16 prefabs for Grade II listed building status.
The Excalibur estate in Catford
, London Borough of Lewisham
is the UK's largest remaining estate of post-second world war prefab houses, with 187 Uni-Seco wooden frame bungalows plus a flat-roofed prefab church. While residents fought to save the entire 187-unit estate, English Heritage wanted to save 21 examples, and the council which still owns 80% of the properties wanted the ability to demolish the whole estate. In September 2009, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
agreed to GradeII list six of the least altered properties. Similar debates have resulted in the listing of 16 Phoenix prefabs in Wake Green Road, Hall Green
in Birmingham
; and two in Doncaster
.
Approximately six prefabs have been extracted from site for preservation, including one AIROH at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans. An Arcon Mark V from Yardley in Birmingham is now preserved at the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings.
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944
Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944
The Housing Act 1944 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which was passed in order to provide solutions to the housing crisis which occurred at the end of World War II....
, to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
housing shortage.
Taking the details of the public housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
plan from the output of the Burt Committee
Burt Committee
The Burt Committee was a working party set up by the government of the United Kingdom to provide guidance on the housing shortage.The committee had the correct title of the Interdepartmental Committee on House Construction. It was established in September 1942 by the Minister of Health, the...
formed in 1942, the Conservative Party's
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Churchill proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,000 prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years within five years of the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The eventual bill of state law, agreed under the post-war Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
, agreed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150m.
Through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works
Ministry of Works
The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1943, during World War II, to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. After the war, the Ministry retained responsibility for Government building projects....
, the programme got off to a good start, but foundered through a combination of commercial rivalry, public concern, and pure cost. More expensive to build than conventional houses, the envisaged excess production capacity of materials was taken up at a quicker rate through Britain's post-war export drive to reduce her burgeoning war-debts.
In the end, of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 when the programme officially ended, only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed. Today, a number survive, a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years.
Context
The combined impact of war and a lack of commercial high street activity, creates many post-war shortages and resultant economic inflation, not the least of which is in housing stock. In post–World War II Britain, this was increased through the use by both sides of carpet bombingCarpet bombing
Carpet bombing is a large aerial bombing done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase invokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in the same way that a carpet covers a floor. Carpet bombing is usually achieved by dropping many...
from great altitudes, which had a huge effect on both the number and quality of available housing stock. Estimates at the time suggest that the minimum shortage was some 200,000 houses nationally. The result was the duplication of a strategy deployed by the post–World War I government of a country-wide investment programme in a national public house building scheme.
In envisaging the problem, Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
had set up the cross-party Burt Committee
Burt Committee
The Burt Committee was a working party set up by the government of the United Kingdom to provide guidance on the housing shortage.The committee had the correct title of the Interdepartmental Committee on House Construction. It was established in September 1942 by the Minister of Health, the...
in 1942. They sent British engineers to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from late 1943, looking at how America - a world leader in prefab construction, thanks to its war focus - intended to address its needs for post-war housing.
The outcome of the Burt Committee was that it favoured prefabricated housing as a solution to the problems. In a radio broadcast in March 1944, as the War in Europe was concluding
Victory in Europe Day
Victory in Europe Day commemorates 8 May 1945 , the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not...
, Churchill announced a Temporary Housing Programme, known officially as the Emergency Factory Made or EFM housing programme. The vision was for a Ministry of Works (MoW)
Ministry of Works
The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1943, during World War II, to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. After the war, the Ministry retained responsibility for Government building projects....
emergency project to build 500,000 ‘new technology’ prefabricated temporary houses directly at the end of the war:
This vision and promise passed into law as the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944
Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944
The Housing Act 1944 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which was passed in order to provide solutions to the housing crisis which occurred at the end of World War II....
, which planned to build 300,000 prefab houses in Britain over the next four years, with a structural lifetime of between 10 and 15 years. In fact just over 150,000 were built.
However, rather than relying on private sector investment as in the United States, the new Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
government of Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
, having been part of a war government that deployed large and efficient production schemes to win the war, simply applied the same theory to this problem. The plan was also in part an economic solution, as it reduced the need for a post-war government laden with debt having to subsidise commercial operations, a problem avoided by simply encouraging them to work together to design and produce the paid-for solutions. The solution providers were hence already equipped for mass manufacture, and made capable of post-war transition through fulling a great economic need.
But the scale of the problem was highly under estimated. At the end of the war, it was found by survey that more than three million houses had been damaged by enemy bombing, almost a quarter of all homes in the country. Most of the damaged stock was in London and the southeast, particularly in areas hit hard by Hitler's vengeance weapons. Although the building trade had taken a beating, with many of its skilled labourers killed whilst on duty as foot soldiers, the recovery in labour levels was boosted by high post-war unemployment. The envisaged shortages of basic building supplies did initially exist, but were quickly turned around: basic supplies of sand, gravel and clay to produce bricks and cement were natural resources within the geography of Great Britain, they just needed extracting.
By 1951, the EFM housing programme and its off-shots had added one million council houses, resulting in 15% of all the dwellings in Britain became publicly owned, more than the proportion in the communist Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
at that time.
Standards
The MoW created research institutes, standards and competition authorities that resulted in core building regulationsBuilding regulations
Building regulations may refer to:*Building code, a set of rules that specify the minimum acceptable level of safety for constructed objects*Building regulations in the United Kingdom, statutory instruments that seek to ensure that the policies set out in the Building Act 1984...
. Although essential at the time to ensure quality, the way in which they were implemented from a regulatory view point defined and restricted the whole of the British construction industry, until the reforming non-centralist government of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
some 35 years later.
All approved prefab units had to have a minimum floor space size of 635 square feet (59 m²), and be a maximum of 7.5 feet (2.3 m) wide to allow for transportation by road.
The most innovative creation of the MoW was what was termed the "service unit," something which the MoW initially specified all designs had to include. A service unit was a combined back-to-back prefabricated kitchen that backed onto a bathroom, pre-built in a factory to an agreed size. It meant that the unsightly water pipes, waste pipes and electrical distribution were all in the same place, and hence easy to install.
The service unit also contained a number of innovations for occupants. The house retained a coal-fire, but it contained a back boiler
Back boiler
A back boiler is a device which is fitted to a residential heating stove or open fireplace to enable it to provide both room heat and domestic hot water or central heating...
to create both central heating
Central heating
A central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be a HVAC system.Central heating differs from local heating in that the heat generation...
as well as a constant supply of hot water. For a country used to the pleasures of the outside lavatory and tin bath, the bathroom included a flushing toilet and man-sized bath with hot running water. In the kitchen were housed such modern luxuries as a built-in oven, refrigerator and baxi water heater: items we now take for granted.
All prefabs under the housing act came pre-decorated in magnolia
Magnolia
Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol....
, with gloss-green on all additional wood, including the door trimmings and skirting boards.
Often very American is appearance and style, to speed construction many were developed on the side of municipal parks and green belt
Green belt
A green belt or greenbelt is a policy and land use designation used in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges which have a linear character and may run through an...
s, giving their residents who had most often come from cramped shared rooms in inner cities, the feeling of living in the rural countryside.
House types
When the Ministry of Works opened up the design competition, some 1400 designs were submitted. Reviewed by the Building Research StationBuilding Research Establishment
The Building Research Establishment is a former UK government establishment that carries out research, consultancy and testing for the construction and built environment sectors in the United Kingdom...
, many were rejected from the conceptual stage, such as the British Powerboat Company's proposal for the Jicwood all laminated plywood design; while others were only dismissed after the prototype stage, such as the steel framed Riley. However, a few were approved after testing for construction:
Prototype - Portal
The first prototype to be unveiled was the motor industry contribution, a steel panelled experimental temporary bungalow called the Portal after the minister of works, Lord PortalWyndham Portal, 1st Viscount Portal
Wyndham Raymond Portal, 1st Viscount Portal PC GCMG DSO MVO was a British politician.The eldest son of Sir William Wyndam Portal, 2nd Baronet, and Florence Elizabeth Mary Glyn CBE, daughter of Hon...
. With a floor area of 616 square feet (57.2 m²), and an estimated cost of £600 constructed, and £675 fully furnished. It included a prefabricated slot-in kitchen and bathroom capsule, that included a pre-installed refrigerator
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...
. The proposed rent was 10 shillings a week for a life of ten years.
Airey
Developed by LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
based construction magnate Sir Edwin Airey
Edwin Airey
Sir Edwin Airey was a British industrialist responsible for the Airey prefabricated houses constructed in the UK after the Second World War.-Life:...
, it was easily recognisable by its precast concrete columns and walls of precast ship-lap concrete panels. Due to its variation of design, available with a flat or pitched roof, and with variations for rural or urban sites; it became one of the most prolific of the permanent designs.
Arcon
Developed and hence constructed by Taylor WoodrowTaylor Woodrow
Taylor Woodrow was one of the largest British housebuilding and general construction companies. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but merged with rival George Wimpey to create Taylor Wimpey on 3 July 2007.-Early years:Frank Taylor was...
, the Arcon was an asbestos-clad variant of the Portal, with the same prefabricated kitchen and bathroom capsule. It had a longer life, but also came with a higher cost of construction. The later rolled top roofed Arcon Mk5 was developed by Edric Neel. 38,859 were constructed through the programme.
AIROH
The AIROH house (Aircraft Industries Research Organisation on Housing) was a 675 square feet (62.7 m²), ten tonne all-aluminiumAluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
bungalow assembled from four sections, each to be delivered to the site on a lorry, fully furnished right down to the curtains. The proposed rate of production of complete houses was to be an incredible one every twelve minutes. This was possible because the completely equipped and furnished AIROH could be assembled from only 2,000 components, while the aircraft it would replace on the production line required 20,000. The parents of future Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...
were allocated at AIROH, on which he commented:
Although impressive, the AIROH by 1947 was costing £1,610 each to produce, plus costs of the land and installation. However, as the design was so easy to produce, 54,500 AIROHs were constructed.
BISF
The British Iron and Steel FederationBritish Iron and Steel Federation
The British Iron and Steel Federation, formed in 1934, was an organization of British iron and steel producers responsible for the national planning of steel production. Its creation was imposed on the industry by Ramsay MacDonald's National Government as a precondition to the establishment of...
, an association of steel producers, was formed in 1934 in order to provide central planning for the industry. It was prominent in coordinating output through the War.
Post-war, BISF became key in the new housing programme. It sponsored a solution for a permanent steel framed housing to a design by architect Sir Frederick Gibberd
Frederick Gibberd
Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd was an English architect and landscape designer.Gibberd was born in Coventry, the eldest of the five children of a local tailor, and was educated at the city's King Henry VIII School...
, who also designed the Howard House.
The BISF is of a conventional design, with simple architectural devices of projecting window surrounds encasing Crittall Hope
Crittall Windows Ltd
Crittall Windows Ltd is a notable English manufacturer of steel-framed windows, today based in Witham, Essex, close to its historic roots in the county...
windows, and differing cladding to the upper and lower stories deal with the junction between components in an understated fashion. Traditional materials could be incorporated or simulated, for example a brick cladding to the lower storey, or steel sheet profiled to match timber weatherboarding to the upper. The BISF house also uses tried and tested methods, with a simple over-site slab ground floor and render on metal lath cladding.
Produced by the British Steel Homes company, the BISF was a successful design in numerical terms, thanks to the backing of its trade sponsors, who could ensure a supply of steel. The BISF also benefited from a guaranteed order of 30,000 units given directly by the Government in 1941.
Mortgages for BISF houses are available from a limited number of Lenders who now view such properties to have a similar lifespan to that of a traditional brick constructed house.
Cornish Unit
Designed by A E Beresford and R Tonkin for the Central Cornwall Concrete & Artificial Stone Co., they are also known as Cornish Type and Selleck Nicholls & Williams houses. The houses came in type1 and type2 designs, incorporating variations of a bungalow, two storey semi-detached and terraced layout with a medium pitched MansardMansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
hipped roof
Hipped roof
Hipped roof can refer to:*A hip roof, a type of roof where all sides are sloped*A tented roof, a conical style of roof seen in Russian architecture...
.
The first floor is PRC clad over a single-storey concrete frame, while the type1 house has the Mansard roof over timber trusses. Internal walls are made of PC wall block or brick. So successful was the design, 30,000 Cornish Unit houses were eventually constructed.
However the roofs and wall insulation incorporated asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
, while the wooden frame-based construction means that as the concrete decays the two parts tend to separate, resulting in large amounts of internal cracking. The major defects are:
- Horizontal and vertical cracking of PRC columns
- High rates of carbonation and significant levels of chloride in PRC columns
- Cracking of first floor ring beams
Hawksley
A W Hawksley Ltd of HucclecoteHucclecote
Hucclecote is an affluent and sought-after village in Gloucestershire , England situated on the old Roman road connecting Gloucester with Barnwood, Brockworth, Cirencester and Cheltenham...
, were formed in 1940 by the Gloster Aircraft Company
Gloster Aircraft Company
The Gloster Aircraft Company, Limited, known locally as GAC, was a British aircraft manufacturer. The company produced a famous lineage of fighters for the Royal Air Force : the Grebe, Gladiator, Meteor and Javelin. It also produced the Hawker Hurricane and Hawker Typhoon for the parent company...
to build the Albermarle
Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle
The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.41 Albemarle was a British twin-engine transport aircraft that entered service during the Second World War.Originally designed as a medium bomber that could be built by non-aviation companies without using light alloys, the Albemarle never served in that role, instead...
aircraft designed by Armstrong Whitworth
Armstrong Whitworth
Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. Headquartered in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth engaged in the construction of armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles, and aircraft.-History:In 1847,...
. Post-WW2, the companies parent Hawker Siddeley kept it open to supply prefab houses and bungalows to the MoW. After their MoW work finished, they continued for a period exporting their buildings to Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay into the 1960s. Their designs included:
- BL8 - an aluminium-clad timber-framed bungalow.
- C2/C3 - either a 3 bedroom bungalow, or convertible to a government building such as a Post Office or Doctors surgery
- Hawksley House - a semi-detached or terraced house with 2-4 bedrooms based on the principles of the Swiss architect G Schindler
- Hawkesley Single Storey building - a general purpose building suitable for schools, offices, hospitals and village halls
The company later developed an aluminium house for the Margaret MacMillan Memorial Fund, for use in tropical overseas relief missions.
Howard
Another designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, the steel framed designed was privately promoted by John Howard & Company. A more industrial aesthetic design, and more adventurous in its use of innovative technologies. Asbestos cement cladding panels are clearly expressed with metal flashings over a base course of foamed slag concrete panels, with windows and doors fitting within the module set up by the cladding. Unlike the BISF this house proudly displays its lightweight prefab nature, but there are also technical advances that set the Howard House apart, for example the pre-cast concrete perimeter plinth that supports a suspended steel ground floor. Only 1,500 Howard Houses were built.Laing Easi-Form
Designed by Laing and Co., as they are poured in-situ into moulds type designs developed from 1919 onwards, they do not suffer the problems of many steel framed buildings. The rare Mk1 version had 8 inches (20.3 cm) thick solid no-fines clinker concrete walls, built in the period 1919 to 1928. The more common Mk2 version from 1925 to 1945 had cast in situ cavity walls, 3 inches (7.6 cm) thick inner and outer Ieaves with 2 inches (5.1 cm) cavity, usually finished externally with stone dashed render coat. Post 1945, The Mk3 version which make-up the majority of houses, was modified to specification, and hence had cast in situ concrete walls, inner and outer leaves of 3 inches (7.6 cm) thickness separated by a 2 inches (5.1 cm) cavity, and reinforcement in both skins located in four horizontal bands above and below window openings.Mowlem
Like the Laing Easi-Form, a cast in situ concrete form of construction, first used in 1952 but mainly in the period 1962 to 1981. With a solid cavity wallCavity wall
Cavity walls consist of two 'skins' separated by a hollow space . The skins are commonly masonry such as brick or concrete block. Masonry is an absorbent material, and therefore will slowly draw rainwater or even humidity into the wall. The cavity serves as a way to drain this water back out...
, the poured concrete substitutes for the inner blockwork walls of traditional housing. Solid wall types 225 millimetres (8.9 in) thick cast in lightweight concrete, rendered externally. Cavity wall types have an inner leaf of at least 100-125mm thick concrete.
Orlit
Designed by Czech architect Erwin Katona, who left Czechslovakia in 1938 to relocate to the UK, the design is a two-storey precast reinforced concrete design. The design was produced in ScotlandScotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
by the Orlit Co, resulting in most houses being located in Scotland.
On site construction was based on a foundation which supported pre-cast concrete columns at fixed intervals, supporting concrete beams fixed to the columns, resulting in a virtually a monolithic frame. Faced externally with large storey-high concrete slabs, and internally with interlocking foamslag blocks. Internal partitions are constructed of breeze blocks finished in plaster, as is the foamslag internal cladding. The floors are constructed of pre-cast concrete flooring units, with timber flooring on timber runners.
Due to both the speed of construction and the quality of production, over time the PRC deteriorates, particularly at construction joints and junctions between components, with a gradual reduction in structural effectiveness. This resulted in the Orlit designated as defective under the Housing Defects Act 1984, and hence a majority of mortgage lenders will not give any form of mortgage on them.
Phoenix
McAlpine
-People:*Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine — British politician*Jennie McAlpine — British actress*Katherine McAlpine — American science writer and rap performer*Sir Robert McAlpine, 1st Baronet — British civil engineer, known as 'Concrete Bob'...
and Henry Boot, it looked much like an AIROH with a central front door, but far less aesthetically pleasing. A 2bedroom in-situ preform design with steel frame, asbestos clad walls, and an innovative roof of tubular steel poles with steel panels attached. Like all designs, it came pre-painted in magnolia, with green highlights on frames and skirting. Phoenix prefabs cost £1,200 each constructed onsite, while the specially insulated version designed for use on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
cost £2,000.
Reema
Reema houses are built from large-scale (nominally single storey height) precastPrecast concrete
By producing precast concrete in a controlled environment , the precast concrete is afforded the opportunity to properly cure and be closely monitored by plant employees. Utilizing a Precast Concrete system offers many potential advantages over site casting of concrete...
reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
panels, themselves made in factories, before construction is enabled onsite. Reema houses come in two forms:
- Reema Conclad
- Reema Hollow Panel
Due to structural degradation and the use of asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
in the wall and roof insulation, both are difficult to obtain a mortgage on today. The Reema Hollow Panel is listed universally as defective after a Government sponsored investigation and the subsequent Housing Defects Act 1984, while the Reema Conclad is often mis-recognised as a Hollow Panel.
Swedish
Between September 1945 and March 1946, SwedenSweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
exported 5,000 prefabricated houses to England and 2,100 to France. The design was adapted by the MoW from a standard Swedish kit, with the all-timber houses arriving in flat sections, and then stored at the docks for allocation, often to rural areas in support of farm workers. The first of these houses were built at Abbots Langley
Abbots Langley
Abbots Langley is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Hertfordshire. It is an old settlement and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Economically the village is closely linked to Watford and was formerly part of the Watford Rural District...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, in January 1946. The Swedish Government gifted 100 timber-framed houses to Scotland, which were erected in two locations in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
.
Tarran
The Tarran was designed by building firm of Robert Greenwood Tarran of HullKingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
. A wooden frame designed bungalow, over clad with precast concrete
Precast concrete
By producing precast concrete in a controlled environment , the precast concrete is afforded the opportunity to properly cure and be closely monitored by plant employees. Utilizing a Precast Concrete system offers many potential advantages over site casting of concrete...
panels. 19,014 Tarrans were erected under the Temporary Housing act, but one- and two-storey variants were built in some numbers afterwards.
Uni-Seco
Produced by the London based Selection Engineering Company Ltd, the three versions of the Uni-Seco were largely erected in London and the southeast. A 2bedroom flat-roofed bungalow, it had a resin-bonded plywoodPlywood
Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
timber-frame with asbestos wall sections, it was based on a military wartime office design. With dimensions of 23 in 6 in (7.16 m) by 19 in 7 in (5.97 m), the first two versions included the MoW standard kitchen/bathroom service unit, plus a lounge; Mk3's had a central entrance over the original side door. Uni-Seco had appointed in 1943 the Czehzolvakian
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
emigre George Fejer as an industrial designer, who on a part-time basis helped out with their kitchen design. Fejer later worked with Arthur Webb and George Nunn at Hygena
Hygena
Hygena is a brand of fitted kitchen, originally from the United Kingdom. Started in Liverpool in 1925 to make Hoosier cabinets, it was bought by new investors in 1938, who after the war built modular kitchens for the new British post-war temporary prefab houses...
to create the UK style of fitted kitchen, based on the principles of the Frankfurt kitchen
Frankfurt kitchen
The Frankfurt kitchen was a milestone in domestic architecture, considered the fore-runner of modern fitted kitchens, for it realised for the first time a kitchen built after a unified concept, designed to enable efficient work and to be built at low cost...
. Approximately 29,000 Uni-Seco units were constructed. The Excalibur estate in Catford
Catford
Catford is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Architecture:...
, London Borough of Lewisham
London Borough of Lewisham
The London Borough of Lewisham is a London borough in south-east London, England and forms part of Inner London. The principal settlement of the borough is Lewisham...
is the UK's largest residual estate of prefabs, presently consisting of 187 Uni-Seco bungalows.
Unity structures
Unity Structures were a construction company based in RickmansworthRickmansworth
Rickmansworth is a town in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire, England, 4¼ miles west of Watford.The town has a population of around 15,000 people and lies on the Grand Union Canal and the River Colne, at the northern end of the Colne Valley regional park.Rickmansworth is a small town in...
. Using a common storey-level precast reinforced concrete panels, they produced various updated versions of their bungalow and twin-storey house variations. Using metal bracing within the cavity and metal joists connected at column joints, the PRC columns act as mullions. Copper straps tie the inner panel to outer PRC panel on earlier variant, while later the copper strap fixed to column holding just outer PRC cladding panels.
Although the design incorporates significant steelwork resulting in fair current structural condition, the concrete used in casting is decaying, and resultantly leaks chlorides. This results in internal staining through panel joints, and corrosion of the metal reinforcing and straps.
A Unity structures bungalow originally located in Amersham
Amersham
Amersham is a market town and civil parish within Chiltern district in Buckinghamshire, England, 27 miles north west of London, in the Chiltern Hills. It is part of the London commuter belt....
is preserved at the Chiltern Open Air Museum
Chiltern Open Air Museum
Chiltern Open Air Museum is a museum of vernacular buildings and a tourist attraction located near Chalfont St Peter and Chalfont St. Giles in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, England....
.
Wimpey no-fines
George Wimpey & Co.George Wimpey
George Wimpey was formed in 1880 and, based in Hammersmith, operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919 and he developed it into the UK’s pre-eminent construction and housebuilding firm. In 2007, Wimpey merged with Taylor Woodrow to create...
being a house builder, focused on both design but also speed and ease of construction. Their method used "no-fines" concrete, the composition of which used no fine aggregates
Aggregate (composite)
Aggregate is the component of a composite material that resists compressive stress and provides bulk to the composite material. For efficient filling, aggregate should be much smaller than the finished item, but have a wide variety of sizes...
. Using huge reuseable moulds, they were held in place as the concrete for the entire outer structure was poured in one operation. The ground floor was also concrete, while the first floor was made of wooden floorboards. Interior walls were a mixture of conventional brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
and blockwork construction. Wimpey's design was particularly successful, resulting in many thousands built, and still occupied today.
Other types
There are Hamish prefabs (types 1 and 2), the Duplex Sheath prefab, the Bricket Wood Special prefab, the Blackburn Orlit prefab, and even a pre-fabricated gem known as the Foamed Slag.Programme
The MoW built a small estate off Edward Road, NortholtNortholt
Northolt is a town in the London Borough of Ealing, England. The town has London Underground and Network Rail stations and is on the A40 road...
, in 1944 to demonstrate to the construction industry, parliament and the media that the principles of their standards, and show that houses and flats could be built of concrete as well as brick. The highlight of the show was the live construction over 2 days of a Sir Frederick Gibberd designed BISF, under the watchful 24-hour eyes of the media.
The MoW then held a public exhibition of five types of prefab at the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in London, in 1944:
- Two timber framed designs, the Tarran and the Uni-Seco
- One steel-framed with asbestos panels, the Arcon
- One aluminium prefab, made from surplus aircraft materials, the AIROH
This proved so popular, that the Tate held two follow up exhibitions in 1945. In April 1945, in a public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
exercise, an Arcon was completed and handed over to its new occupants by 22 men in under eight hours, and in May an AIROH was erected on a bombed site in London’s Oxford Street
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...
in just four hours.
While the cost of the prefabs was met directly by the MoW, the sites and utility infrastructure costs were the responsibility of the local authority. The 1944 Act had envisaged problems in obtaining access to sites quickly and hence slowing the programme, and so gave councils the authority to claim sites where two or more prefabs could be constructed. Councils were also given power over the site once identified, even before purchase was completed. The programme delivered quick housing, with properties going up at the rate in some authorities at the rate of 1.75 units per site per day, and the 100,000th house completed in January 1947 in Clapham
Clapham
Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...
, South London
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
.
However, the cost of the programme at £150m met with opposition at many levels, both politically and economically. In August 1945 the Portal was abandoned for lack of steel, while the Uni-Seco was effectively stopped from production from the middle of 1946 through lack of supply of wood. It was stated that both the Arcon and AIROH were above budget: the British prefabs in both manufacture and construction costs combined turned out to be more costly than traditionally built brick houses, while the American sourced units were cheaper. The population allocated prefabs were also concerned that prefabs were a permanent over a temporary solution, with the postwar radio comedy Stand Easy! with Charlie Chester
Charlie Chester
Charlie Chester was a British comedian and TV and radio presenter, broadcasting almost continuously from the 1940s to the 1990s. His style was similar to that of Max Miller.- Life and career :...
's creating popular skit-chants on the subject, including:
As the economy began to recover, the cost of the unwanted post-ware excess production reduced and hence costs of manufacture rose sharply. When the Chancellor
Chancellor
Chancellor is the title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the Cancellarii of Roman courts of justice—ushers who sat at the cancelli or lattice work screens of a basilica or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the...
allowed the pound to freely float against the dollar from 1947 onwards, a programme costing 60% of government income was severely cut back.
Total production
Production of the major types for local authorities continued until 1947, but only 170,000 of the 500,000 units promised were completed by 1951, when Churchill's new Conservative government made a promise of 300,000 new houses in partnership with the private sector:| Name | Sponsor | Designer | Frame | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | Units | Cost of Construction | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airey | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (PP&P) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 25,567 | £??? | |
| AIROH | Sponsor | Designer | Aluminium | Aluminium or clad | Aluminium or Asbestos | 3 | 54,000 | £1,610 | |
| Arcon | Sponsor | Designer | Frame | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 46,000 | £1,209 | |
| BISF | BISF | Sir Frederick Gibberd Frederick Gibberd Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd was an English architect and landscape designer.Gibberd was born in Coventry, the eldest of the five children of a local tailor, and was educated at the city's King Henry VIII School... |
Steel | Steel/Concrete | Steel | 3+ | 31,516 | £??? | |
| Cornish Unit | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (PP&P) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 23,173 | £??? | |
| Howard | Sponsor | Designer | Frame | Walls | Roof | 2+ | 1,404 | £??? | |
| Laing "Easiform" | Laing | Laing | Concrete (LS) | Concrete (LS) | Clay Tile | 2+ | £??? | ||
| Mowlem | Mowlem Mowlem Mowlem was one of the largest construction and civil engineering companies in the United Kingdom. Carillion bought the firm in 2006.-History:Founded by John Mowlem in 1822, the company was awarded a Royal Warrant in 1902 and went public on the London Stock Exchange in 1924. It acquired SGB Group in... |
Mowlem | Concrete (LS) | Concrete (LS) | Clay Tile | 2+ | £??? | ||
| Newland & Kingston | Tarran Industries | Designer | Concrete (LS) | Walls | Roof | 2+ | 2,681 | £1,022 | |
| Orlit | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (PP&P) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 8,449 | £??? | |
| Phoenix | Laing | Laing | Frame | Walls | Steel plate over rolled steel poles | 2 | 43,206 | £1,200 | |
| Rema | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (LS) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 7,067 | £??? | |
| Scotswood | Sponsor | Designer | Wood | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 1,067 | £??? | |
| Smiths Building Systems | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (LS) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 3,877 | £??? | |
| Spooner | Sponsor | Designer | Wood | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 3,507 | £??? | |
| Stent | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (LS) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 1,287 | £??? | |
| Uni-Seco | Sponsor | Designer | Frame | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 30,000 | £1,131 | |
| Unity Structures | Sponsor | Designer | Steel | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 13,701 | £??? | |
| Wates | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (LS) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 18,776 | £??? | |
| Woolaway | Sponsor | Designer | Concrete (PP&P) | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 4,845 | £??? | |
| Wimpy "no fines" | Wimpy | Wimpy | Concrete (LS) | Concrete (LS) | Clay tile | 2+ | 53,371 | £??? | |
| All other steel frames | Sponsor | Designer | Steel | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 4,890 | £??? | |
| All other in-situ | Sponsor | Designer | Steel | Walls | Roof | Bedrooms | 3,783 | £??? | |
NOTES:
- LS - Precast Concrete, Large Slab
- PP&P - Precast Concrete, Pier & Post
Residual housing stock today
The strength of the post-ware temporary prefab house - fast construction over an aluminium, steel or wooden frame - is today its weakness. The properties were only designed to last 10 years, and so some of the quality standards were not as high as they would have been should a longer life have been envisaged. Secondly, the quality of metal production then was not as good as it was now, but it should be remembered that in only the previous few years British manufacturing plants had become adapt at producing a consistently high quality product for the war effort, and so standards were consistent.The quality of a steel framed prefab house, which can be suffering from rust, or a wooden house from rot, can be found in the footings of the structure where it meets the foundation slab. With checks undertaken by a qualified and certified housing surveyor, the structural integrity of the house can be quickly ascertained through exposure of the footings: if they are not rusty or rotted, the house is normally structurally sound.
The second problem with non-refurbished houses is the use of asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
in the original construction, particularly in the roof structure. Again, a qualified surveyor should be able to ascertain if asbestos is present, what type, and how to address its removal. There are a number of central and local government grants available for domestic asbestos removal which should cover most of the cost.
The third problem with the survival or prefabs in the 21st century is that of style. Never seen as aesthetically pleasing, the tight building regulations meant they also came with reasonable sized rooms and gardens. Modern house construction can create around 35 living spaces per acre, while often the prefabs will be sat on site layouts of less than 20. This, together with the age of the properties, makes redevelopment of mass prefab sites a distinct advantage to councils and housing association
Housing association
Housing associations in the United Kingdom are independent not-for-profit bodies that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in housing need. Any trading surplus is used to maintain existing homes and to help finance new ones...
s. Hence, every year since 2000, the number of prefabs remaining has approximately halved.
Preservation
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
has one of the largest remaining populations of prefab housing stock, and it also remains one of the most diverse. As a war time production centre for both aircraft, engines and explosives, it was easy to reach for Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
bombing, and hence had a large post-war need for new housing stock. There remain around 700 examples of Uni-Seco, Phoenix, Tarron and roll-topped Arcon MkV's. The stock diversity has resulted in English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
selecting 16 prefabs for Grade II listed building status.
The Excalibur estate in Catford
Catford
Catford is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Architecture:...
, London Borough of Lewisham
London Borough of Lewisham
The London Borough of Lewisham is a London borough in south-east London, England and forms part of Inner London. The principal settlement of the borough is Lewisham...
is the UK's largest remaining estate of post-second world war prefab houses, with 187 Uni-Seco wooden frame bungalows plus a flat-roofed prefab church. While residents fought to save the entire 187-unit estate, English Heritage wanted to save 21 examples, and the council which still owns 80% of the properties wanted the ability to demolish the whole estate. In September 2009, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is a department of the United Kingdom government, with responsibility for culture and sport in England, and some aspects of the media throughout the whole UK, such as broadcasting and internet....
agreed to GradeII list six of the least altered properties. Similar debates have resulted in the listing of 16 Phoenix prefabs in Wake Green Road, Hall Green
Hall Green
Not to be confused with Hall Green, Wolverhampton or Hall Green, SandwellHall Green is an area and ward in south Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee...
in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
; and two in Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
.
Approximately six prefabs have been extracted from site for preservation, including one AIROH at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans. An Arcon Mark V from Yardley in Birmingham is now preserved at the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings.
External links
- English Heritage slideshow of various archive slides of prefab houses and their construction
- BISF House
- Account of moving into a prefab from the Museum of Wales
- List of Non-standard construction types, and major identifying criteria
- List of Prefab construction companies