Affordable Panelized Wall System

PURPOSE

Affordable housing remains an elusive goal for too many families. Volunteers groups seek to remedy this, but are oftentimes stymied by the costs of building materials. In some cases, examples of affordable housing are unappealing to both potential residents and their future neighbors, “I don’t want to live in that box!” and “I don’t want Army barracks in my neighborhood!” Some “affordable” neighborhoods have foundered due to the lack of maintenance and resultant deterioration – maintenance which could not be afforded by the residents. Stick-built houses are well-known. Mobile homes have evolved to a particular stick-and-panel wall system. Pole barns are perhaps the cheapest enclosed volume. Houses in central Mexico are constructed without a single piece of wood. But, each of these has issues in the context of eye-pleasing comfortable affordable housing. In the post-World War II era, crate-makers who no longer had orders for military crates, shifted their production to factory-made homes, using a 4-foot by 8-foot structural panel system. These worked quite well, and most remain high-quality residences.

OBJECTIVE

To design a system of modular panels and connecting mechanisms that form the exterior walls of a single family home that adheres to specific:

• structural requirements
• cost of ownership over a 60 year plan
• environmental impact
• aesthetics and function
• configuration of utilities

Essentially, the intended focus is not the lowest initial cost, but rather the total cost of ownership over a 60-year span. To be successful, houses built with this system must have positive equity growth over the years, to provide financial independence and stability to the families who live in them.