A House Is Not a Car (Yet)

The automotive industry has played a crucial role in the thinking around mass prefabricated housing since the early twentieth century. In Australia, a chronic housing affordability crisis, combined with the pending departure of automotive manufacturing, means that the house/car couplet is again under comparison—and not always for the right reasons. The key argument of this article is that a better understanding of the specificities of housing relative to other industries has the potential to release industrialized housing from the trope of a perennial “good idea” that ultimately leads to disappointing results. This might free the industry, allowing it to provide truly innovative and disruptive solutions to the problems surrounding contemporary housing. Further, a richer understanding of the differences between the house and car as industrial products will clarify thinking around the current status of industrialized building production and help chart a more productive future course for housing more generally.