There's a happy medium. A lot of things like roof trusses are much more precisely and cheaply built in a shop and then transported to the site.

But, yes, most houses around me have so many flaws that it seems problematic to count them as assets. Christopher Alexander has a lengthy calculation on this in 'The Nature of Order.'

Houses can be custom built in a factory.

They don't have to be identical copies at all, in the computer age.

Agree with this.

I live in a newish housing estate in a relatively affluent area of the UK, where every single house has the same cladding, the same colour of roof, the same colour of doors, the same colour and style of windows, the same small patch of grass out the front, and each house is separated by less than 2m.

Walking around the place feels... wrong, hollow, eerie somehow. And yet, many people seem to love this homogeneous kind of place.

Thing is, as you point out, it doesn't have to be this way - it's local planning regulations and NIMBY neighbours that are the problem. Why does every house need to look almost identical? Why do I need permission to paint my front door a different colour?

It's not prefabrication that prevents diversity - it's policy.

You'd think that! You'd think that about something very simple, too, like door hardware. Eastlake (mid 1800's) style hardware has all these beautiful engravings on knobs, plates, hinges, even little places like the mortise plates that are rarely seen. Surely today in the computer age the doorknobs on half-million dollar homes must be more beautiful than these. But they're not.

I can make you an insanely intricate door if you want with a cheap CNC machine. But I don't see a ton of demand for it.

Also, the vast majority of the cost of a half million dollar home is the land.

I think people want this, and manufacturers can supply it.

But it doesn't conform to regulations and/or everyone that has a veto in the planning and permit process.

Indeed, I grew up in a neighborhood that was built during the 50s, and I first developed this sense that I could find my way around anybody's house. Then I realized that all of the houses had identical floor plans but different exterior finishing and were oriented differently. It took me years to figure this out, even though I lived in the middle of it.

Second that, and also parent poster thinks you can fix people problems with "build moreee hoouses".

There is no technology that fixes people problems. I would say Skynet from Terminator was onto something but still failed :)

You can fix homelessness by building more houses, eh?

Of course you are going to let everyone live in premium location of their choice.

Would you be willing to share the series that you're working on?

I'm looking to design my own home and very much agree with what you have to say. I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts.

> Building on site is not very expensive

Compared to building the same stuff in a factory, it is.

You're wanting Christopher Alexander, "Pattern Language" and then "The Nature of Order"; his site: Living Neighborhoods https://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm

TL;DR: Buildings and neighborhoods should be designed in situ by the people living there.

The PL volumes are earlier and seminal (both SimCity and the concept of "Patterns" in programming are two examples) while the more mature Nature of Order is nearly mystic.

I'm convinced that if we could combine the ideas of Pattern Language with applied ecology we could create a new form of civilization so beautiful our ancestors would consider it Heaven on Earth.