Buildings have been built in one place and reassembled in another throughout history. This was especially true for mobile activities, or for new settlements. Kastil Elmina, the first benteng budak in Afrika Barat, was also the first European prefabricated building in Sub-afrika sahara.1: 93 In Amerika Utara, in 1624 salah satu bangunan pertama at Tanjung Ann was probably partially prefabricated, and was rapidly disassembled and moved at least once. John Rollo described in 1801 earlier use of portable hospital buildings in the Hindia Barat.2 Possibly the first advertised prefab house was the "Manning cottage". A London carpenter, Henry Manning, constructed a house that was built in components, then shipped and assembled by British emigrants. This was published at the time (advertisement, South Australian Record, 1837) and a few still stand in Australia.3 One such is the Rumah Pertemuan Teman, Adelaide.45 The peak year for the importation of portable buildings to Australia was 1853, when several hundred arrived. These have been identified as coming from Liverpool, Boston and Singapura (with Chinese instructions for re-assembly).6 In Barbados the Rumah chattel was a form of prefabricated building which was developed by emancipated slaves who had limited rights to build upon land they did not own. As the buildings were moveable they were legally regarded as barang bergerak.7
In 1855 during the Perang Krimea, after Florence Nightingale wrote a letter to Waktu, Kerajaan Isambard Brunel was commissioned to design a prefabricated modular hospital. In five months he designed the Rumah Sakit Renkioi: 1,000 rumah sakit pasien, dengan inovasi di bidang sanitasi, ventilasi, dan toilet pembilasan.8 Fabricator William Eassie constructed the required 16 units in Dermaga Gloucester, shipped directly to the Dardanella. Hanya digunakan dari Maret 1856 hingga September 1857, itu mengurangi tingkat kematian dari 42 persen menjadi 3,5 persen.
The world's first prefabricated, pre-cast panelled apartment blocks were pioneered in Liverpool. A process was invented by city engineer John Alexander Brodie, whose inventive genius also had him inventing the football goal net. The tram stables at Walton in Liverpool followed in 1906. The idea was not extensively adopted in Britain, however was widely adopted elsewhere, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Prefabricated homes were produced during the Demam Emas in the United States, when kits were produced to enable Californian prospectors to quickly construct accommodation. Homes were available in kit form by mail order in the United States in 1908.9
Prefabricated housing was popular during the Perang Dunia Kedua due to the need for mass accommodation for military personnel. The United States used Pondok Quonset as military buildings, and in the United Kingdom prefabricated buildings used included Pondok Nissen and Hanggar Bellman. 'Prefabs' were built after the war as a means of quickly and cheaply providing quality housing as a replacement for the housing destroyed during ledakan. The proliferation of prefabricated housing across the country was a result of the Komite Burt and the Perumahan (Akomodasi Sementara) Act 1944. Under the Kementerian Pekerjaan Buatan Pabrik Darurat housing programme, a specification was drawn up and bid on by various private construction and manufacturing companies. After approval by the MoW, companies could bid on Council led development schemes, resulting in whole estates of prefabs constructed to provide accommodation for those made homeless by the War and ongoing pembersihan kumuh.10 Almost 160,000 had been built in the UK by 1948 at a cost of close to £216 million. The largest single prefab estate in Britain11 was at Belle Vale (South Liverpool), where more than 1,100 were built after World War 2. The estate was demolished in the 1960s amid much controversy as the prefabs were very popular with residents at the time.
Prefabs were aimed at families, and typically had an entrance hall, two bedrooms (parents and children), a bathroom (a room with a bath) — which was a novel innovation for many Britons at that time, a separate toilet, a living room and an equipped (not pas in the modern sense) kitchen. Construction materials included steel, aluminium, timber or asbes, depending on the type of dwelling. The aluminium Tipe B2 prefab was produced as four pre-assembled sections which could be transported by lorry anywhere in the country.12
The Universal House (pictured left lounge diner right) was given to the Museum Terbuka Chiltern after 40 years temporary use. The Mark 3 was manufactured by the Universal Housing Company Ltd, Rickmansworth.
The United States used prefabricated housing for troops during the war and for GIs returning home. cetakan classrooms were popular with UK schools increasing their rolls during the ledakan bayi of the 1950s and 1960s.
Many buildings were designed with a five-ten year life span, but have far exceeded this, with a number surviving today. In 2002, for example, the city of Bristol still had residents living in 700 examples.13 Many UK councils have been in the process of demolishing the last surviving examples of Second World War prefabs in order to comply with the British government's Standar Rumah Layak, which came into effect in 2010. There has, however, been a recent revival in prefabricated methods of construction in order to compensate for the United Kingdom's current housing shortage