Prefabrication in the Australian context

Abstract

Australia actually has a long history with prefabricated building since its early settlement days. However, methods of prefabrication have, until the past decade, been relatively few and almost nonexistent with the exception of relocatable school building or portables. The revival of interest in prefabricated building has been quite recent, involving a few selective construction companies, and the interpretation of prefabrication has mainly resulted in a ‘volumetric’ product as the solution. In response to this, first the paper describes the profile of prefabrication in Australia, and then addresses a pathway for the processes and methods to pre-fabrication based on the identified challenges in Australia. This paper presents these ideas and discusses the up and coming directions of prefabrication in Australia.