Buildings have been built in one place and reassembled in another throughout history. This was especially true for mobile activities, or for new settlements. Castelo de Elmina, the first forte de escravos in África Ocidental, was also the first European prefabricated building in África Sub{0}}Africana.1: 93 In América do Norte, in 1624 um dos primeiros prédios at Cabo Ann was probably partially prefabricated, and was rapidly disassembled and moved at least once. John Rollo described in 1801 earlier use of portable hospital buildings in the Índias Ocidentais.2 Possibly the first advertised prefab house was the "Manning cottage". A London carpenter, Henry Manning, constructed a house that was built in components, then shipped and assembled by British emigrants. This was published at the time (advertisement, South Australian Record, 1837) and a few still stand in Australia.3 One such is the Friends Meeting House, Adelaide.45 The peak year for the importation of portable buildings to Australia was 1853, when several hundred arrived. These have been identified as coming from Liverpool, Boston and Cingapura (with Chinese instructions for re-assembly).6 In Barbados the Bens imóveis was a form of prefabricated building which was developed by emancipated slaves who had limited rights to build upon land they did not own. As the buildings were moveable they were legally regarded as bens móveis.7
In 1855 during the Guerra da Crimeia, after Florence Nightingale wrote a letter to Os tempos, Reino de Isambard Brunel was commissioned to design a prefabricated modular hospital. In five months he designed the Hospital Renkioi: um hospital de 1,000 paciente, com inovações em saneamento, ventilação e vaso sanitário com descarga.8 Fabricator William Easy constructed the required 16 units in Docas de Gloucester, shipped directly to the Dardanelos. Usado apenas de março de 1856 a setembro de 1857, reduziu a taxa de mortalidade de 42% para 3,5%.
The world's first prefabricated, pre-cast panelled apartment blocks were pioneered in Liverpool. A process was invented by city engineer John Alexander Brodie, whose inventive genius also had him inventing the football goal net. The tram stables at Walton in Liverpool followed in 1906. The idea was not extensively adopted in Britain, however was widely adopted elsewhere, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Prefabricated homes were produced during the Corrida do ouro in the United States, when kits were produced to enable Californian prospectors to quickly construct accommodation. Homes were available in kit form by mail order in the United States in 1908.9
Prefabricated housing was popular during the Segunda Guerra Mundial due to the need for mass accommodation for military personnel. The United States used Cabanas Quonset as military buildings, and in the United Kingdom prefabricated buildings used included cabanas Nissen and Hangares Bellman. 'Prefabs' were built after the war as a means of quickly and cheaply providing quality housing as a replacement for the housing destroyed during a blitz. The proliferation of prefabricated housing across the country was a result of the Comitê Burt and the Lei de Habitação (Acomodação Temporária) de 1944. Under the Ministério das Obras Emergência Fabricada na Fábrica housing programme, a specification was drawn up and bid on by various private construction and manufacturing companies. After approval by the MoW, companies could bid on Council led development schemes, resulting in whole estates of prefabs constructed to provide accommodation for those made homeless by the War and ongoing limpeza de favela.10 Almost 160,000 had been built in the UK by 1948 at a cost of close to £216 million. The largest single prefab estate in Britain11 was at Belle Vale (South Liverpool), where more than 1,100 were built after World War 2. The estate was demolished in the 1960s amid much controversy as the prefabs were very popular with residents at the time.
Prefabs were aimed at families, and typically had an entrance hall, two bedrooms (parents and children), a bathroom (a room with a bath) — which was a novel innovation for many Britons at that time, a separate toilet, a living room and an equipped (not montado in the modern sense) kitchen. Construction materials included steel, aluminium, timber or amianto, depending on the type of dwelling. The aluminium Tipo B2 prefab was produced as four pre-assembled sections which could be transported by lorry anywhere in the country.12
The Universal House (pictured left lounge diner right) was given to the Museu a céu aberto de Chiltern after 40 years temporary use. The Mark 3 was manufactured by the Universal Housing Company Ltd, Rickmansworth.
The United States used prefabricated housing for troops during the war and for GIs returning home. Pré-fabricado classrooms were popular with UK schools increasing their rolls during the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s.
Many buildings were designed with a five-ten year life span, but have far exceeded this, with a number surviving today. In 2002, for example, the city of Bristol still had residents living in 700 examples.13 Many UK councils have been in the process of demolishing the last surviving examples of Second World War prefabs in order to comply with the British government's Padrão de casas decentes, which came into effect in 2010. There has, however, been a recent revival in prefabricated methods of construction in order to compensate for the United Kingdom's current housing shortage