Can prefab be pretty fabulous?  Brooklynites think not.  Developer Bruce Ratner is talking about building apartment towers in Atlantic Heights from locally-manufactured prefabricated units and residents are up in arms.  In a borough crowded with new luxury hi-rises, it’s a curious drama.  Part of the problem is that Ratner’s cost-conscious decision reduces the need for union construction labor.  But the larger part of it might be public relations. 

“Prefabricated” brings to mind shoddy workmanship, draconian design, and a welfare state.  Designers are enthusiastic about using prefabricated units to shape single family homes but considerably less interested in employing them for larger buildings.  There’s Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 in Montreal.  And there’s Kisho Kurokawa’s amazing Nagakin Capsule housing in Tokyo from 1972, a bundle of identical, washing-machine-like units that can be combined internally and replaced individually as required.  Now the challenge is for architects to create prefab buildings that people might actually want to live in.