First of many.

Hello and welcome to my new blog. My name is Dave Chamberlain. I run a business based in Westgate on Sea in East Kent, more specifically in Thanet. I live here with my wife Paula, and daughters Aimee & Chloe and cats Daisy & Poppy. I was bought up in Broadstairs, attended Charles Dickens Secondary Modern and then moved onto Thanet Technical College where I studied Law, Politics and a few others. Thereafter I went into the construction industry for five years and produced Timber Frame Houses in a factory setting. These were sent out to sites on the back of a lorry and erected on site in days. A very efficient system and one that provides good insulation. From there I moved into the civil service with HM Customs & Excise and left after 14-years, quite long enough for any sane person. An unusual career path bearing in mind my interests and previous occupation but needs must at the time in an area that had high unemployment as bad as Consett in the North of England. The work was interesting and I saw a side of life not seen by many. I served out most my service in London Airports. During this time I lived in Ramsgate, then to Morden in 1991 (my wife came from that area), then Dorking, onto Horsham and back to Thanet in 2005. I now run UK Land Solutions (aka Plotwant) and have done for several years. This area has a huge potential which will eventually be fully realized and which in recent years has been lifted out of a depression with the aid of EU money. There is a long way to go with some aspects but a great deal has been done over the last few years. Local towns around here conurbate each other, Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate and further inland villages such as Monkton, St. Nicholas at Wade, Minster and Manston add some rural charm. The area has 22 sandy bays/beaches (so I'm told, I haven't counted them all). Thanet was once an island. There are a lot of events to visit during the summer and it's a great place to bring up children. If nothing else the beaches are at least free! Run Thanet into a search engine for further information.

What is this Blog about? The blog is here to explore modular and prefabricated building design and to act as a forum for others interested in the topic. My business, UK Land Solutions, (Previously known as Plotwant) sources land and commercial space for (re)development. I am very interested in the prefabricated housing systems market and modular design and construction too. I am also interested in Airspace or rooftop real estate, basically building on top of other buildings, penthouses and the like. We are retained by Padlife http://www.padlife.co.uk to source land for their clients. The older generation think of prefabs as huts made of asbestos panels put up to house families during the war who were bombed out of their homes. Many survived for years after and examples can still be seen. Their life expectancy wasn't designed to last more than a decade. Today's prefabricated designs are fuel efficient and made out of composite materials designed to deal with wear and tear and heat loss. The designs are radical compared to the average 3 bed semi or terrace. In the Sunday Times supplement this weekend Kevin McCloud states we are still using techniques devised by the Assyrians and last refined by the Romans. We dig mud from the ground, bake it into slabs, glue the slabs together with more mud, add more mud and goo to the out and insides to smooth it off and stick a hole in the roof to let heat and smoke out. He goes on to add you would not buy a well engineered car which had been built in a field so why likewise a house? In Finland half the population live in a house which was built in a factory, in the UK last year of the 160,000 new homes built only 1% were factory built.

Prefab has arrived. Punk changed the music industry for ever in the mid-70s. Now in the 21-hundreds prefab has taken the first steps to doing the same with the housing industry.