Our Green Guide to Prefab series has explored a number of considerations that need to be made when planning for a prefab home, from siting to personal style to financing and loans. But how do you translate that all of that newfound information into a succinct design that maximizes sustainability? Green certification is one way to bring order to the often overwhelming process of constructing a home, and it provides a sustainability score sheet and solid guidelines that will help you systemize your decision-making process in a way that will make sense to you. By using a certification program to help plan your home, you can skip all the hair pulling and have peace of mind knowing that you’ve taken every step possible to create an energy-efficient, healthy, and sustainable space for living. Read ahead to learn more about the biggest certification programs out there, what you need to do to get started with one, and how getting your home certified will add to the long-term dollar value of your new prefab.

Read the rest of GREEN GUIDE TO PREFAB: Preparing Your Home for Green Certification

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Post tags: "leed", building a kit home, building a new sustainable home, building a prefab home to be certified, designing your home to be certified, Eco Architecture, economical home, Energy Star Rated homes, factory made homes, flat pack architecture, green architecture, green certification, green certified architecture, green certified homes, green guide to prefab, green modern family homes, ICC, ICC Certification, ICC homes, kit homes, LEED architecture, LEED for Home, Lindal Cedar Homes, lindal homes, michael harris, modern home, modernism, money and building a new home, non-volumetric homes, portable homes, Prefab, prefab architecture, Prefab Homes, prefab industry, prefabricated architecture, prefabricated homes, volumetric homes

Inhabitat’s Green Guide to Prefab series has explored all the elements involved in planning and realizing a modern prefab home – we’ve taken a look at the history of the various “branches” of the American prefab industry and how they have evolved, and we’ve discussed how to maximize building site, local climate, lifestyle goals and budget into a design can make a break or a dream home. In our final article in the Green Guide to Prefab editorial series, we will discuss something that innovative systems builders have recognized and have begun to address in far greater measure than providers of more traditional home building services: time. With our busy lives how can we make the most of what limited time we have to effectively to plan for and build a home that meets our needs? As you read ahead, consider the question: Is time a renewable resource?

Read the rest of GREEN GUIDE TO PREFAB: How to Make the Most of Your Time When Building a New Home

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Post tags: building a home on time, building a prefab on time, Eco Architecture, eco prefab architecture, economical home, factory made homes, flat pak architecture, green architecture, green guide to prefab, green homes, history of modernism, history of prefab design, history of prefab homes, history of prefabricated housing, homes on wheels, Lindal Cedar Homes, lindal homes, michael harris, mobil homes, mobile homes, modern family homes, modern home, modern trailer homes, modernism, non-volumetric homes, portable homes, prebuilt homes, prefab architecture, Prefab Homes, prefab industry, prefabricated architecture, prefabricated homes, time budgeting a new home, trailer homes, volumetric homes

In the last two articles of our Green Guide to Prefab series, we showed you the best way to build a prefab home that suits your lifestyle and makes the most of your building site. In our latest article, we’ll look at the elements you need to consider to ensure the financial success of your project – green homes offer dynamic environments that are a joy to live in, but in order to successfully build one it’s essential to be realistic and control costs to avoid winding up in the red. Read on as former Lindal Cedar Homes CEO and green design consultant Michael Harris returns to Inhabitat to discuss the ins and outs of building your dream home on a budget.

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Post tags: architecture and budgeting, architecture budgets, budget homes, budgeting a new home, building a home on a budget, building a kit home, building a prefab home on a budget, controlling costs when building a new home, designing your home on a budget, Eco Architecture, economical home, factory made homes, financing a new home, flat pack architecture, green architecture, green guide to prefab, green modern family homes, how to create a budget for a new home, kit homes, Lindal Cedar Homes, lindal homes, michael harris, modern home, modernism, money and building a new home, non-volumetric homes, portable homes, Prefab, prefab architecture, Prefab Homes, prefab industry, prefab on a budget, prefabricated architecture, prefabricated homes, volumetric homes

Last month we kicked off our Green Guide to Prefab series with an article exploring the history of prefabricated housing. Now we’re back with another article in this series to take a look at mobile homes and their influence on the development of prefabricated housing.  Although the words ‘mobile home’ today often conjure up images of sprawling trailer parks outside cities, these compact homes-on-wheels were, in fact, part of a design revolution that gave way to a low-cost, portable option for single-family home ownership. Read on for the second installment of our Green Guide to Prefab, where former Lindal Cedar Homes CEO, and green design consultant Michael Harris schools us on the history of the mobile home and how it helped shape modern prefabricated housing.

Read the rest of GREEN GUIDE TO PREFAB: The History of the Mobile Home and Its Influence on the Modern Prefab

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Post tags: Eco Architecture, economical home, factory made homes, flat pak architecture, green architecture, green guide to prefab, history of modernism, history of prefab design, history of prefab homes, history of prefabricated housing, homes on wheels, Lindal Cedar Homes, lindal homes, michael harris, mobil homes, mobile homes, modern family homes, modern home, modern trailer homes, modernism, non-volumetric homes, portable homes, prefab architecture, Prefab Homes, prefab industry, prefabricated architecture, prefabricated homes, trailer homes, volumetric homes

In the last two installments of our Green Guide to Prefab series on Inhabitat we highlighted the history of prefab design and the evolution of mobile homes into modular prefabricated homes. Within the last ten years, consumers have come to expect a new level of design quality in prefab homes, and this new generation is looking to not only personalize their home, but to create a sustainable, modern space that is able to support eco-conscious lifestyle without any sacrifices. Prefab home builders have taken notice and are responding to the new demand by providing more options to prospective prefab homeowners. But if you’re looking to buy prefab, you may wonder which type of manufactured home is right for you? Inhabitat’s Green Guide To Prefab is here to help. Our latest article will focus on every project’s most important consideration — the building site. If your home isn’t in perfect harmony with its site – considering and responding to the location’s natural environmental characteristics – you’re not getting the best green home you can get. So what must a prefab home do in order to get the most from its site? Jump ahead for the answer as former Lindal Cedar Homes CEO and green design consultant Michael Harris returns to Inhabitat give us some insight.

Read the rest of GREEN GUIDE TO PREFAB: Siting Your Home to Maximize Eco Efficiency

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Post tags: architecture sites, choosing your building site, Eco Architecture, economical home, factory made homes, flat pak architecture, getting the most from your building site, green architecture, green guide to prefab, history of modernism, history of prefab design, history of prefab homes, history of prefabricated housing, homes on wheels, Lindal Cedar Homes, lindal homes, michael harris, mobil homes, modern family homes, modern home, modernism, non-volumetric homes, portable homes, prefab architecture, Prefab Homes, prefab industry, prefabricated architecture, prefabricated homes, siting your home, trailer homes, volumetric homes

Prefabricated housing has seen a surge in popularity over the last few years as an affordable, eco-friendly and modern alternative to custom stick-built housing or suburban tract homes. Although prefab construction has experienced a recent spike in popularity in this past decade, the idea of prefabricated building construction is nothing new – prefab designs have been around for over a century, embedded in the history of the modern architecture movement. In order to really understand prefab housing, we’re going to dive into a history lesson and take a look back at the prefab home movement during the last century.

Inhabitat is pleased to announce the launch of a brand new six-part series, The Green Guide To Prefab Housing, where we are enlisting the expertise of graduate architect, former Lindal Cedar Homes CEO and green design consultant Michael Harris. In our first three installments, Michael introduces us to the prefabricated home as a modern, green design alternative, analyzing the roots of factory-made housing and how its core concepts have converged with the precepts of sustainability and modernism. How has factory-built housing been informed by modernism and the green movement? And how has prefab construction influenced green, modern design? Jump ahead to part one this series where Michael will take you on an in-depth tour of a particular type of prefab package; the kit-home.

Read the rest of GREEN GUIDE TO PREFAB: The History of The Kit Home

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Post tags: Acorn House, carl koch, case study house, Charles and Ray Eames, deck house, Eco Architecture, economical home, factory made homes, flat pak architecture, green architecture, green guide to prefab, history of modernism, history of prefab design, history of prefab homes, history of prefabricated housing, homes on wheels, Lindal Cedar Homes, lindal homes, michael harris, mobil homes, mobile homes, modern family homes, modern home, modern trailer homes, modernism, non-volumetric homes, portable homes, prefab architecture, Prefab Homes, prefab industry, prefabricated architecture, prefabricated homes, Sears Roebuck Kit House, Sir Walter Lindal, trailer homes, Truck Chassis homes, volumetric homes, Walter Gropius