Harvard Design School - Mobile Homes
Manufactured Housing: A Double-Wide Analysis
“In all its history, the mobile home has evolved not through the expertise of professional designers but through the needs and desires of owners and users. Components are engineered and physical characteristics change, but manufactured houses are not subject to fundamental tectonic or aesthetic thought. Though there has been interaction between architects and the mobile home industry, these have not had lasting impact. In the early postwar period, architects developed a wide variety of designs for manufacturers trying to shift to a peacetime economy. In the intervening years, however, interaction between architects and the industry have been only sporadic. Opportunities that might arise from the involvement of professional designers who understand the positive qualities of manufactured houses have not been tested.”
In Disassembly, “methodical cutting and peeling of a thirty-year-old mobile home reveal the thinness of its construction, offering clues to spatial, aesthetic and tectonic possibilities of manufactured housing.”
Studio Projects include Mimi Hoang’s hybrid dwelling and Patricia Rhee’s convertible house.