© 2007 Francis Loetterle. All Rights Reserved. Think of small houses and small buildings as we have come to think of small cars. Small cars are very efficiently mass-produced. They cost less than larger cars. They use less material than larger cars. They use less energy in their manufacture and in their operation than larger cars. They have smaller engines and cause less air pollution than larger cars. They drive in narrower lanes and park in smaller spaces than larger cars. They have come to be very well made, as durable and more economical in operation and maintenance than larger cars. The world market for small cars just gets bigger as the size and price gets smaller. The more small cars a company builds and sells the more efficient the production, the lower the price and the bigger the market. Think of land use, transportation and infrastructure planning with efficiency, and sustainability far greater than any thing achievable in a world of small cars. There is no more powerful way to achieve ever-higher levels of efficiency and sustainability than to make things smaller. Smaller furniture and appliances, smaller cars and garages, smaller houses and buildings, smaller building footprints and smaller lots. When you make things smaller they typically require less capital, less material and less energy. Designing smaller furniture and appliances makes possible smaller homes and apartments. Designing smaller cars makes possible smaller garages, parking lots and streets. Designing multi, rather than single story houses and apartments results in reduced ground coverage, higher densities, infrastructure optimization and conservation of land. Making things smaller results in thriftier use of materials and conservation of social, economic and natural resources. Making things smaller results in less load to be carried by the structure of the building which means the structure itself can be lighter and less expensive. Making rooms, apartments and houses smaller means the enclosed volume is reduced with a corresponding reduction in the amount of energy required to heat or cool the space. Small is appropriately humble, in the sense of accurately reflecting our place in the ecology of planet Earth. And smaller projects that turn out to be mistakes have less catastrophic consequences than do larger projects. Excerpted from "Cost & Affordability," an essay in Mass Housing Design Principles and Prototypes. Mass Housing Design Principles And Prototypes, by Francis Loetterle, 118 pages, 55 drawings, $45.00. Click here to order This book addresses the design of efficient and sustainable mass housing. The principles and prototypes presented are the products of twenty-eight years research and practice. The design principles address: Efficiency and Sustainability, Open Architecture and Modular Design, Rational Building Systems, Cost and Affordability, and Speed. The prototypes are comprised of unbuilt projects and hypothetical exercises. Modular planning prototypes for mass housing are presented in addition to single and multifamily modular design prototypes. All of the mass housing prototypes employ light gauge steel construction, modular design, prefabrication and mass-production. Each prototype addresses an obvious and pressing housing problem that has not received much current recognition or tangible solution. Some examples of pressing problems addressed are urban infill and small scale redevelopment housing, low income senior citizen housing, working poor housing, especially in developing countries, war refugee and war recovery housing and disaster relief-recovery housing. The contents of this book should be of interest to all people, worldwide, involved in mass housing; primarily planners, architects, engineers, students and teachers, but also housing and urban development agencies, disaster relief agencies, international development banks, redevelopment agencies, zoning code agencies, low cost housing mortgage lenders, production homebuilders and residential construction component manufacturers. Efficient and sustainable mass housing is a worldwide problem both critical and current. These mass housing principles and prototypes are presented in conjunction with the equally pressing and much larger problem of efficient and sustainable new neighborhoods, communities, towns and cities. The book is not a critique of what is but a series of suggestions concerning what to do instead. Back To Top Built By WebSight design Francis Loetterle, Architect, modular, design, affordable, low cost, mass, housing, schools, classrooms, land use, infrastructure, master, planning, efficient, sustainable, communities, fast-track, delivery, building, systems, components, light gauge, residential, inline, steel framing, pre-engineered, prefabricated, production, project, management, design-build, manufactured, HUD Code, panelized, disaster, recovery, redevelopment, single, multi, family, homes, urban, infill">