Integrated processes for design and fabrication have guided mass customization of architectural systems and components. Providing affordable and accessible housing, a vital segment of the building industry, is a multifaceted process that witnessed various manifestations towards individualization over the past few decades. Design flexibility in housing systems is becoming a crucial aspect, informed by consumers’ lifestyles, demographic patterns, and lifecycles change at a rapid pace. As the housing market demands more personalized, efficient, and agile strategies, prefabricated building systems have always presented a viable alternative for flexibility and customization, following a rise of interest in the last decade focused on new modes of digitized design and production. This paper presents an overview and appraisal of various practices to implement customization in the housing industry, with specific focus on empowering a systemic approach. We then propose an open framework that could accommodate emergent design technologies and production protocols, with the aim of taking advantage of advanced research efforts, and coupled with current industry application.

Applying design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) principles in the construction industry has gained attention in recent years. Studies convey that the application of DfMA in construction projects can significantly enhance overall productivity. However, the literature on construction-oriented DfMA is still limited, and its application in real-life projects has been stifled due to various constraints. Following a design science research method, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify the construction-oriented DfMA implementation challenges. To address these challenges, a construction-oriented DfMA framework was theorized, verified in a project-based context, and validated through focus group discussions with off-site construction industry experts. In this study, 45 challenges were identified and categorized into eight main constraint categories: contractual, technological, procedural, cultural, commercial, geographical, financial, and technical/cognitive. The foremost challenges to the adoption of DfMA in construction projects seems to relate to the contractual and operational aspects and their associated stakeholders. This study provides insight into the challenges of implementing DfMA in the construction industry. The investigated challenges contribute to the theoretical and practice-based checklists of limitations for implementing DfMA methods and can inform future research. Finally, this paper introduces a framework for implementing DfMA and provides supporting field-based evidence for its application.

Construction professionals work in silos and use traditional design and construction methods. The growing demand for rapidly built and high-quality construction is making off-site manufacturing mainstream. Studies have shown that collaboration among all stakeholders is a necessary component for success in the construction of such buildings. This multidisciplinary study of an existing concrete hotel aims to explore an alternative structural design in mass timber or volumetric modular construction. To this end, the reinforced concrete floor plan of Club Med de Charlevoix in Quebec, Canada, was used as a benchmark for two different structural systems. The first strategy investigated CLT (cross-laminated timber) and glulam columns to replicate the reinforced concrete system (column–slab), while the second involved maximum prefabrication (volumetric modular construction). Both mass timber and volumetric modular strategies can lead to a smaller carbon footprint. The main conclusion is that the plan should be designed from the outset to be either traditional or prefabricated since major changes are required if the choice is made to switch from one system to the other. Moreover, when structural systems maximize off-site construction, such as volumetric modular construction, the various professions need to be included during early planning. This is necessary to avoid task duplication and prevent the neglect of considerations such as manufacturable dimensions and partition organization.

Harnessing, distributing, tempering and supplying water, heat and power in a building produces its share of design, technical and coordination issues. Specifically, the relationship between hygiene and cooking functions and architecture has been underscored by even the most ancient civilizations as these services give a building its potential to serve and showcase architecture's hospitality. The relationship between services and architectural space has long challenged designers and manufacturers to streamline their piecing together. Throughout construction history and modern architecture in particular the wet service core or utility core sought to organize an efficient way of zoning services, their production and construction integration; The utility core epitomized this rationalization within a self-contained engine-like device positioned to serve the entire dwelling. This paper proposes an extensive review of literature and practical exploration in order to detect new potentials for designing integrated, technology-driven, flexible and adaptable prefabricated utility cores for today's industry. The core was intended as a hub accommodating mechanical and technological equipment; electrical services, plumbing fixtures, water supply, drain, waste, vent piping, telephone cables, and easy connections to site infrastructure. Today's techniques and building information modeling allows the core to be redefined in relation to multiple scales and various organizational possibilities with regard to space/function connections. Further an adaptable core articulated to the «open building» theoretical framework of layering systems to avoid entanglement and to maximize durability, can be part of a comprehensive strategy to enable customization. The vast amount of literature and precedents contribute to a robust historic narrative of two distinct approaches of architectural rhetoric and industrial production. This paper will endeavor to illustrate this narrative and evaluate the potentials for achieving broader application.

Modernity in architecture was substantiated by a revolution in manufacturing. Factory-produced systems for buildings and their components induced an appeal for mass production in architecture. The sometimes confluent and often divergent dream of a factory-produced architecture has had the issue of customization at its core. Prefabrication of architecture is still promoted as an efficient and lean process; however, the repetitive model of continuous production often connotes a lack of variability. This repetitive model of industrialized building is being challenged by new technology and an increased need to respond to social heterogeneity. Today’s theoretical experiments of custom prefabrication address a range of issues from conceptual, to design, to fabrication and construction. These models for flexibility and variability are yet to permeate a generalized lack of innovation within the industry. This paper presents an evolving methodology for developing a collaborative platform toward assembling a customizable architecture from manufactured systems for architecture.