European architects positive about design possibilities prefab

The operational advantages of prefab elements were acknowledged by architects shortly after their introduction. However, the limited diversity was a frequently heard complain made by architects. The application of prefab elements would be at the expense of the architectural design, this because of the uniformity of prefab. Since then, prefab elements has been developed successfully. As a result of that, architects are nowadays much more enthusiastic about the application of prefab elements. The European Architectural Barometer shows that 86% of the Dutch architects indicate that they can create good looking architectural designs by using prefab nowadays. Also architects in Italy (75%), France (67%) and the UK (53%) confirm this. Only the German architects (29%) do not agree. On the contrary, even 47% of the German architects (strongly) disagree on this.

By Jeroen de Gruijl
10 Aug 2015
Dry- & wet finishing, Construction,
Subscribe to the newsletter

Nonetheless, 61% of the German architects expect an increase in application of prefab elements because of a shrinking labor market. Also France (63%) and Dutch (53%) architects expect an increase for that reason.

These and many other results are shown in the European Architectural Barometer, an international research among 1200 architects in Europe. Four times a year, this study is conducted by Arch-Vision in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. The research covers the developments of architectural turnover and order volumes.  Besides these economic statistics, a topic is highlighted each quarter. This because architects are not only a good indicator for future building volumes, they are also very influential in how projects are build and which materials are used.