George Rotinoff was known as "the Isambard Kingdom Brunel of prefab engineering." He used his shipbuilding expertise to design a the 'New Model' prefab. This had all kinds of jazzy accessories: sinks with double drainers, dry goods cupboards, and drop-flat tables. You name it, George Rotinoff's 'New Model Prefab' had it! - apart from spheres.
It was R. Buckminster Fuller who designed the sphere-shaped prefab, and he first put it on display in a Chicago department store in 1929. Some people immediately said: "We have seen the pre-fabricated future - and it is round!" In 1949 Buckminster Fuller took the world by storm once again when his lightweight aluminium geodesic Wichita House went on show.
Art college students spend endless hours debating whether form or function, beauty or utility, should be the dominant principle of design. The prefab truth is that you can have both. "Form follows function!" is the philosophy which underlies our 'AIROH Aluminium' prefabs. Seeing how the coalhouses and water butts stand guard like heroic sentinels can take your breath away.
The homeless people of the world are crying out for somewhere to live. Some people say that prefabs - whether rectangular or geodesic - have had their day as a policy answer to this urgent social question. When Zhou Enlai of the Chinese Communist Party was asked to give his assessment of the legacy of the French Revolution he said "It is too early to say." It is the same with the prefabs.