Prefabricated Urban Utopia: Understanding the "Ideal City" of Mass-Produced Modular Housing

Abstract

This thesis aims to determine the relationship between utopian progression and the development of prefabrication technology up to the contemporary position of modular and mass timber housing construction. Utopian definitions of Thomas More, Dolores Hayden, Tessa Morrison, and Robert Fishman set a theoretic framework for utopian thought, allowing for a utopian examination of prefabrication. Looking at building practices leading to modular and mass timber housing through the lens of utopia works to determine when prefabrication has played a role more as an intentional tool and means of reaching a utopic vision, and when prefabrication may have been an inherent aspect of utopian organization. By examining prefabricated building technologies over the last century, different utopian qualities are revealed in some project realizations but are notably absent in others. Using the case study of nARCHITECTS’ 2016 “Carmel Place” building in Manhattan and various contemporary cases of mass timber construction, this thesis aims to establish a more well defined relationship between prefabrication and utopia, arguing for a new understanding of utopia as both changed by architectural design and a motivator for new tectonics of architecture.