London is in the throes of a housing supply crisis, we all know this by now. What is less known is how to address it in a way that produces new stock quickly, efficiently and of high quality. While often overlooked, there is a precedent in London’s history for doing this successfully: the use of prefabricated technologies in post-war home-building. Yet despite its original practicality, the stigmatised connotations associated with ‘prefab’ have inhibited it from serving as a legitimate housing solution. The charity organisation YMCA London South West (YMCA LSW) is now challenging this vision through the development of a pioneering modular housing scheme known as Y:Cube
