So much for all those architectural dreams of homes that are mass produced like cars: the trouble is that building remains a stubbornly tailor-made business, despite the increasing number of large pre-assembled bits you can get these days. At times you wonder if very much has changed since Victorian times. The Victorians were masters of prefabrication, whether it was fireplaces, sash windows, plaster mouldings or the Crystal Palace. Moreover, the kind of high-density, deck-access, rear-courtyard model of social housing as represented by Raines Court would have been entirely familiar to Prince Albert. The Victorian housing charities, as represented by such trusts as Peabody, developed a model of what they called artisans' housing in the mid to late 19th century that has really never been bettered. The housing charities were seldom much concerned with the very bottom of the social heap: they wanted workers with a bit of money, whom they would help with a bit of subsidy. Nothing has changed there, either. You won't find asylum seekers at Raynes Court. You'll find young professionals using it, through a part-ownership, part-rent scheme, to get a foot on the housing ladder.

Striding along the walkways, peering into the flats, leaning over the balconies, admiring the continental-style mailboxes in the downstairs lobby, noting the interestingly multi-coloured window recesses and nice timber cladding to the back of the block - all this reminds you of all the social housing ideas there have ever been in the last two centuries. How do we live? We live in rectangular rooms. Are they nice rectangular rooms? Well yes, these ones are. They feel generous, intelligently thought out. The complex as a whole has an integrity. It is nicely put together. It would make no difference at all if it happened to be made of concrete blocks, or wooden beams, or Kryptonite. Prefabrication is an overhyped subject: it's not the end, just the means. In the same way, writing is not to do with the pen or the keyboard, but the words on the page. Always remember this: architecture is not the same as building.