Hi!

I suppose that if you deleted the 'configure phase, it's because there
is no ./configure file.
Is there a bootstrap file?

You probably want to use "PREFIX=" (in all caps).
Also see if the Makefile uses the DESTDIR variable, in which case you
might want to set it to the default output instead of PREFIX.

Look for PREFIX= and DESTDIR= in the Guix packages repository, you'll
find lots of examples.

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/