MASS
CUSTOM HOME ®
The ‘Mass Custom Design’ Approach
to the Delivery of Quality Affordable Homes
Dr Masa Noguchi
ZEMCH Network
The University of Melbourne
Today’s Housing Design Approaches
Homebuilders are usually categorised into
three types: production, semi-custom and custom (Smith
1998; Noguchi 2008). Production builders are organised for high volume
construction. They develop several model homes, normally designed on a
speculative basis, in response to market demand. The production design (or speculative design) approach allows homebuilders to
produce a ready-built home, in which potential buyers can examine the
quality and attributes of their new home in a way that blueprints alone cannot
achieve—thus, helping to ensure the buyers’ satisfaction. The advantages of
speculative design also extend to reducing the lapsed time and cost of
construction. The total time to build a standardised house is much shorter than
for a one-of-a-kind design since construction staff are familiar with the
plans; communications are simplified and material delays less likely to occur
as suppliers are able to stock regularly used items. Higher volume work, such
as a subdivision housing development, also offers trade contractors advantages
in scheduling that result in significant cost savings.
Builders, who apply the semi-custom design
approach for their housing development, are often called semi-custom builders
since they combine characteristics of ready-built and custom-built homes. Like
production builders, they usually work with pre-existing plans or
ready-designed model homes; however, they are flexible regarding design changes
including those that require engineering and building department approval. As a
result, even though customers begin with an existing floor plan, they have
enhanced opportunity to modify and customise the interior and exterior
finishes, and structure (or volume) of their new home. Starting with an
existing plan often helps customers feel confident of ending up with something
that will reflect what they need and want. Smith (1998) indicates that revising
existing plans is faster, and less costly, than creating a new set of
blueprints. However, economies of high-volume work are lost, resulting in
higher prices and builders need more time as they are working from unfamiliar
plans.
Custom builders start from a blank sheet
of paper, or computer screen, to create a completely unique home. Some custom
builders establish relationships with one or more independent architects for
plan development, while, for others, the builder is also an architect, or has
an architect or draftsman on staff—these builders are called "design-build
firms." The
custom design approach is the optimum way to
customise a new home since it creates one-of-a-kind homes corresponding exactly
to individual housing requirements (Table 1). However, custom-built homes
typically take the longest to complete. Supervising scattered site work, the
longer time required to build combined with lost economies of large-volume work
leads to the higher prices typical for custom homes (Smith 1998).
Today’s homebuilders are encountering a
production gap between the need for product standardisation (or mass production) that helps reduce
construction costs and the need for product customisability that satisfies diverse
demands of contemporary consumers (Noguchi 2004).
Table 1: The levels of standardisation and
customisation compared by housing type
The Mass Custom Design®
Approach
"Mass Customisation" is a
complex term, for how can one combine mass production and customisation?
This revolutionary concept was anticipated in 1970 by Alvin Toffler in his book
entitled "Future Shock" and the term itself was coined in 1987
by Stanley Davis in his book entitled "Future Perfect." Furthermore,
in 1993, Joseph B. Pine II eventually systematised the general methods of mass
customising products and services.
As well, to design, build and market a
home requires consideration of both products and services. A house consists of
many components, which can be considered as ‘products’, while design,
construction and marketing are usually regarded as ‘services’. To generate a
housing development, these two aspects are again involved with housing
materials and systems as the products and the design and construction of these
homes as the services (Noguchi 2004).
When viewed as a ‘system’ for designing, producing and selling a product, "mass
customisation" is impossible without customisable products or
communication services (Noguchi and Hernández 2005). Thus, the ‘mass customisation system’ can be formulated
conceptually as follows:
MC = f (PS)
Where "MC" denotes a mass
customisation system itself; "P" is the ‘product‘ sub-system
that help housing suppliers mass-produce housing components, while
"S" is the ‘service’ sub-system that involve the interaction
with users (or buyers) which help them customise an end product (Noguchi
and Friedman 2002a). This model emphasises the interrelationship between
products and services, indicating that these elements are not mutually
exclusive (Noguchi and Hadjri 2009).
Furthermore, in customising products,
‘user participation’ is vital, and therefore housing suppliers need to offer
design support communication services to their clients in locations with
design-consulting staff and appropriate communication tools to facilitate user
choice of standard components in customising an end product (Noguchi and
Friedman 2002b). These fundamental ‘design-service’ factors can be also
integrated into a comprehensive model:
S = f (l, p, t)
In this model, the ‘service’ sub-system is
denoted by "S", and is supported by the existence of the location
(l), personnel (p), and tool (t) factors. Even though these elements are
necessarily interrelated, most homebuilders and housing manufacturers have
already been applying these during the design stage.
An important part of mass customisation is
that the user directly determines the configuration of their home from choices
given as client input during the design stage. This could not be achieved
without the standardisation of housing components for the structural, exterior
and interior arrangements. These are arranged in a visually attractive way in a
component selection catalogue to enable clients to easily choose from the many
options. Housing components can be divided into three categories: volume,
exterior and interior. These can be considered the main elements of the
‘product’ sub-system (P), which can be explained by the following conceptual
model:
P = f (v, e, i,
o)
The volume (v) components are used to
construct the structure of housing that determines the number and size of each
room, while the interior (i) and exterior (e)
components serve to co-ordinate both the decorative and the functional elements
that customize a home (Fig.1). In addition, "o" denotes other
optional equipment such as air conditioning, home security system, emergency
call buttons, handrails, dishwashers and other electrical appliances.
Figure 1. Mass
custom design communication tool
In practice, this design approach does not
fit into the well-recognised design approaches of today—i.e. speculative,
semi-custom, and custom design. Rather, with consideration of the
concept of mass customisation, it should be termed ‘mass custom design’, which results from the combination of three basic
design elements of housing: the volume, exterior and interior (Noguchi 2001,
2003b & 2004; Noguchi and Friedman 2002a; Noguchi and Hernández
2005). In addition, housing suppliers usually provide optional equipment, in
order to improve the amenity of housing. In principle, these housing components
are mass-produced (at least, the designs of these components can be reusable,
but the home itself is customised by the user’s direct choices of such standard
components. The exterior and interior designs include sub-categories such as
the roof, walls, doors, windows, balconies, and front entrance arrangements for
the exterior, as well as the kitchens, sanitary facilities, bathrooms,
washrooms, toilets, storage, and finishing arrangements for the interior. In
addition, the variety of sizes, materials, colours, and textures available for
each component, as well as the variety of amenities offered, help expand the
number of housing variations. Consequently, in order to meet clients’
individual requirements, the manufacturers are able to provide a myriad of
housing variations for their clients without producing a number of standard
model homes that are usually designed on a speculative basis (Noguchi 2003a).
The application of the mass custom design
approach may have potential to reduce production costs by achieving the economies of scope (based on
standardisation of housing components), while helping to totally customise
homes in response to clients’ demands for their new home. As well, the
standardisation of production processes may also help reduce construction time.
The existing elements (i.e. parts of a
whole) can be standardised, while the myriad combinations of these standard
parts still provide great scope for creativity (Fig.2). Thus, a homebuyer, for
example, can directly choose the standard housing components, which can be
mass-produced, while the combinations of the user ‘choices’ of these components
make a house customised—viz. these homes should be termed ‘mass custom homes’ (Noguchi 2001 & 2004;
Noguchi and Hernández 2005).
Figure 2. Mass
custom home: Townhouse model
Because of the nature of a ready-built
home, the entire house itself can be standardised; thus, the level of product customisation
is extremely low (Table 1). The characteristics of a custom home are totally
opposite to those of a ready-built home. A custom home is a one-of-a-kind
house, completely customised; thus, the level of standardisation in both
products and processes can be considered as very low. Semi-custom homes combine
the positive features of ready-built and custom homes—the model house is
usually prepared on a speculative basis like a ready-built home, while, in
response to user demands for housing, the modification of the model house
allows, in part, for product customisation. Mass custom homes may theoretically
achieve, a high level of standardisation (or industrialisation) of all housing components that homebuyers
can directly select in customising their new home, but user choices of
mass-produced, standard components paradoxically increases the level of customisation in housing design
(Fig.3). In much of the literature, the advantages of industrialisation of
housing are said to be the lower and more predictable cost, better and more
standardised quality, and faster and more punctual construction, when compared
to those of site-built housing (Hutchings 1996; Hullibarger
2001).
Figure 3. Standardisation - customisation relationship compared by housing type
The MASS CUSTOM HOME® is a housing prototype developed based on the mass customisation
system model, i.e. MC = f (PS),
as described in the preceding section (Noguchi 2001, 2003b & 2004). This
new mass custom design approach, in which housing products and services
are well standardised and integrated into the system, may have the great
potential to reform the current housing delivery system and contribute towards
producing ‘Quality Affordable Homes‘ that corresponds with today’s
market demands for housing—i.e. affordability and customisability.
References
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in
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Zero-energy Mass Custom Home (ZEMCH) Research Network:
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