The Dos and Don'ts of Modular Housing

A FEANTSA Policy Brief

Download the policy brief here (PDF)

In 2017, the London Borough of Ealing started developing shipping container buildings as a temporary accommodation solution for the growing number of people experiencing homelessness. At that time, it was welcomed as an innovative and quick alternative to bed & breakfast and hotel accommodation. By 2023, when an investigation was called regarding the habitability of the container housing, the local administration already had three such developments, to which the Children’s Commissioner for England drew attention in her 2019 report “Bleak Houses” and which mass-media had been calling “shipping container hell” based on the residents’ complaints of the poor living conditions. Issues about the size and quality of such housing, which was reported to be very cramped and, due to its metal shell, to be very hot in the summer and cold in the winter, added to issues about its presumed temporariness – what was meant to be a transitory solution, often became a long-term one.

This case illustrates some of the concerns over the use of offsite construction as a quick, but poor fix for housing emergencies. It is by no means singular, and container housing has long been associated with human and housing rights violations, as in the case of the segregated Roma camps in Italy, the relocations following forced evictions in Romania or the detention of asylum seekers in Hungary.

Modular, offsite, or prefabricated housing are different terms under the label of modern methods of construction (MMC). Using offsite manufacturing for housing construction is not new and it has been pointed out that the massive housing and labour shortage following WW2 had led to innovative engineering techniques, using for instance precast concrete, that allowed the fast delivery of homes.

Nowadays, across the EU, the use of MMC for housing construction has been evolving at different speeds, with state of the art technology and widespread use of modular housing in some countries, such as Sweden, and emerging policies that promote industrialised public housing production, like in Barcelona and Ireland. However, the representation of modular for the poorest people still is that of repurposed shipping containers to which they are pushed usually following evictions. Thus, the discussion around modular housing is also a discussion about who benefits from the technological progress that can improve our lives and how this can serve the ones in most need in an adequate and dignified manner.

With this policy brief, we explore the dos and don’ts of modular housing and what would be the prerequisites that would prevent its use as a distinctly inadequate and stigmatising form of housing. The paper builds on the information and perspectives exchanged during the Housing Solutions Platform’s debate on modular housing organised in December 2024. It also provides a tentative mapping of available resources on modular housing projects in different parts of Europe.