At first glance it might seem like Jim Garrison is New York's poster boy for modular housing. Amongst the most recent projects his eponymous firm has completed are the Net Zero for the 99% house, a day care center for Lehman College, homes and townhouses throughout New York state and the award-winning Koby Cottage, a guest house in Michigan that was assembled in 48 hours (you can watch a time-lapse video of the installation). All these projects are modular, aka prefabricated, a dirty word for some architects, but Jim doesn't shy away from it. In an industry that seems split over what to make of the rise of modularity, Jim is excited about its many advantages, but readily admits that "modular buildings aren't the solution to everything."
Prefabricated buildings "only have an advantage in so far as they're made in a factory under conditions that allow you to make a tighter building that doesn't lose as much air to the outside and can be more carefully constructed." But they present just as many problems as they do solutions. For starters, they must be designed to be boxed and shipped in accordance with Federal Highway Administration regulations. This, however, demands that the structures be more robust and able to withstand all the trucking, carting and shipping before they arrive to a site.
I asked Jim whether he found it difficult to work with so many limitations. "I think limitations always make one more creative," he said. "If you can define the problem in a way that gives it boundaries and something to push against and create within it almost always makes you better."
