I totally agree with your view on communist concrete buildings (I have to look at them every day).
But before we completely dismiss the idea of using prefabricated elements, consider the good old bricks, which are basically prefabricated elements that allow for enormous flexibility. Same with roof tiles.
To me it seems that prefabricated elements become a problem if they are too large relative to the building's total size. It's hard to make an interesting lego house using 200 lego bricks because the square shape of the lego bricks define the shape of the house. But if you use 20,000 lego bricks the shape of the building doesn't appear to be defined by the shape of the individual bricks. Sort of the same way fonts appear ugly on low resolution screens.
Yes, except if they invent something to make assembling easier (for example a click system of some kind). If prefab elements get so small that a person or a small robot could carry it and so that it could be stacked easily, transported in containers, raised up with elevators etc. it could be cheaper.
But before we completely dismiss the idea of using prefabricated elements, consider the good old bricks, which are basically prefabricated elements that allow for enormous flexibility. Same with roof tiles.
To me it seems that prefabricated elements become a problem if they are too large relative to the building's total size. It's hard to make an interesting lego house using 200 lego bricks because the square shape of the lego bricks define the shape of the house. But if you use 20,000 lego bricks the shape of the building doesn't appear to be defined by the shape of the individual bricks. Sort of the same way fonts appear ugly on low resolution screens.
Prefabricated elements should be smaller.