Architectural Intention as the Mediator of Lean Housing Construction

In recent years a number of companies have taken up the challenge of producing prefab houses using lean principles, hereby incorporating value driven production theory as the means to optimize construction processes. However, the value of home is dependent on architectural qualities and interior spatial experiences difficult to operationalize as production objectives. As stated by Sven Bertelsen a home should be more than the sum of the parts; the home constitutes our physical and metaphysical being and there is deep feelings connected to this phenomenon (Bertelsen, 2005). Modularization and prefab production as lean construction strategies hold obvious potentials in the development of an effective building envelope with regards to indoor climate, assembly etc. However, the discussion of lean construction, future working co operations and processes, often avoid an actual positioning regarding the values, which were originally the main focus of lean construction philosophy (Howell, 1999). Through the development of a particular interior architectural focus this paper suggests a method for reintroducing customer value; architectural quality, as the outset for making housing construction lean.