From the beginning, advocates of factory-built housing promised cheaper, better, and faster housing. None of these goals have been met; a good designer and builder of stick-built homes can match or exceed a similar factory-built product on all these counts. Yet the industry grows and prospers. The reason in simple: Factory- built homes are predictable in their design and construction. Why Clients Need Predictable Designs I like to use a diagram (see illustration below) to describe the design process. Each line from the center represents an individual design issue requiring a decision: framing, cladding, paint, electrical service, etc. The distance the line reaches out from the center represents the emphasis placed on that decision, properly weighted, including its cost. In a perfect design,
