LONDON CALLING. OFF-SITE BUILDING STRATEGIES FOR HOUSING DEMAND: THE UK CASE

Today, a strong re-proposal of building prefabrication is at the basis of the new housing policies that can be detected in main evolved industrial contexts. Off-Site is the word through which the theme of prefabrication seems to recur under new auspices. Among the Countries of the European continent more involved in this new challenge, Great Britain offers several insights, considering its consolidated culture in the field of urban development and its historically dynamic real estate market. Great Britain and its capital, in particular, represent an ideal point of view to understand the potentialities and the criticalities of this new building culture, in the UK explicitly supported by specific housing policies. Starting from the author consolidated interest for technological innovation applied to housing issues and coherently with the historical attention that the same author has over the years perpetrated for the British social, economic and productive context (considered as an advanced context), the paper critically illustrates an innovative housing program underway in the City of London (based on the application of Off-Site production principles), questioning about new prefab housing potentiality