Earlier this summer we introduced you to Freegreen and their efforts to bring green prefab design to the masses. Recently Lloyd Alter from treehugger conducted an excellent interview with David Wax from Freegreen and architect Greg La Vardera whose smart modern home designs can be found on Houseplans.com. Lloyd looks at the issues facing consumers who decided to go the prefab route, exploring the different approaches to design taken by David and Greg. The interview elicits some great responses from each participant, and sums up what their respective design paths mean for consumers. Head on over to treehugger to check it out!
Earlier this summer the brains at Marmol Radziner and Associantes revealed a sleek series of “accessory buildings” including their new Rincon 5 prefab. The clean-lined guest unit features an excellent set of sustainable features including LED lighting, recycled insulation, and bamboo flooring, plus it can function completely off-grid with an optional solar panel package.
For those of us not fortunate enough to attend the MOMA’s recent Home Delivery exhibition, Scribe Media has assembled an excellent video that takes an in-depth look at five of today’s cutting-edge prefabs. Chock full of interviews with architects and led by Chief Curator of Architecture & Design Barry Bergdoll, it’s a must-see for anyone interested in a current survey of the potential of prefabricated housing.
Wandering through the Australian Hills north of Melbourne, it would be easy to miss this deceptively simple, yet elegant house nestled into the surrounding countryside. But once you have reached this beautiful abode designed by Sean Godsell it’s hard to forget it. These hills are not just the home of this dynamic dwelling, but they act to protect it from the often harsh Australian weather and provide shade from the blazing sun.
Often overshadowed in the prefab debate by their sexier cousin, the modular home,manufactured homes are not usually synonymous with sustainability or style. Until now, that is. Introducing HOM (pronounced ‘home’ and written with a fancy phonetic symbol), a new line of green manufactured homes, furniture, lighting and accessories for the consumer who cares about living lightly on the land, in style, and with a close connection to nature. Designed by KAA Design Group, a Los Angeles-based architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and branding company, HOM is sold as a lifestyle, not just a house, and proves beyond a doubt that this is not your average double wide.
As summer hits its stride and the allure of the outdoors arrives we’re happy to report that Method Home’s modern wood wonder has blossomed into a beautiful home. If it seems like a short while since we first introduced you to the “down to earth prefab” you’re right; construction of the cabin took just three months! Situated in Seattle, Washington, the home exudes woodsy warmth tempered by a refined modern form.
This week’s prefab breaks out of the hard-lined modern box with a beautiful soft-shelled structure that finds elegance in its simplicity. That’s right - it’s a Nomad Yurt! SoCal based Ecoshack has updated the ancient shelter with a modern construction that is light, flexible, and composed entirely of eco-friendly materials. The airy shelter is perfect for a summer’s eve spent stargazing, an impromptu backyard gathering, or anyplace that a peaceful private space is desired.
What if we told you you could own a piece of your very own tropical island eco-resort - and do so with an awesome Ewok-meets-Aarnioeco-sphere hanging treehouse? Not only is Our Planet Retreats building bubblicious eco spheres in the trees of exotic and far flung places, but they make owning one a plausible reality. Through smart design and creative, communal financing, this innovative company has figured out a way to help you buy in for less than a tank of gas.
We checked in on the green rebuilding efforts in Greensburg, Kansas when Planet Green’s docu-series premiered last month. We found plenty of interesting developments, but this prefab from Studio804 of the University of Kansas School of Architecture is definitely one of the most memorable. Built as the community art center, this innovative building uses modular design with the length of long truck trailers as the defining width component measure - an outside the box thinking that makes larger prefab buildings possible.
Prefab is taking center stage this summer at The Museum of Modern Art in NYC with the Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling exhibit opening on July 20th. As part of the exhibit, five renowned architects will bring a mix of existing and prototype prefabricated designs to full form on a exterior lot adjacent to the museum. The exhibit has been in construction for several months and the full scale prefabs are almost ready to deliver on what is one of the most talked about prefab events of all time.
Happy 4th of July! With today being American Independence Day, we thought it a good time to reflect on how the U.S. is adapting to (and resisting) migration, particularly along the border of Mexico, where new types of urbanism are evolving in order to accommodate escalating populations arriving from the south. Today, Bryan Finoki of Subtopia and Archinect offers us a provocative article on innovations in migrant housing design.
With so much focus on the US Government militarizing the US/Mexico border right now, it can be easy to miss the new types of migrant urbanism cropping up in the borderlands. For architects and designers, it’s a process that presents important questions, and great potential for innovation.
This stunning prefab in Colina, Chile, is the work of Santiago-based architect Sebastián Irarrázaval. Despite its unique form, it is not meant as a custom design but rather a housing solution that can take shape repeatedly. Constructed of concrete, steel and timber, the 120 square meter structure (1290 sq ft) lives large with a simple geometric that is at ease with the surrounding landscape.
We’ve been fans of Flatpak home designs for quite some time, but are continually impressed when we find more of these unique, customizable prefabs in full form. This home in Aspen, Colorado, is our latest Flatpak discovery courtesy of Jetson Green’sFlickr habit. We’re captivated by the setting of course, but also decidedly enamored with the owner’s choice to combine the Flatpak custom components into this amazing abode in the Rocky Mountains.
In 2006 the AIA set forth an architecture challenge to create ‘A House for an Ecologist’– a home base from which a US Fish and Wildlife Service Ecologist in Residence could live and conduct field research. Raphaelle and Alfredo Maul, of Maul Dwellings in San Sebastian, Spain, answered the call with The Landscape House - a site-sensitive, passive solar dwelling designed to fuse environmental performance with aesthetic integrity, building science with architectural excellence.
One year ago we brought you the Wall House, an elegant small-scale home that challenges the concept of walls with its delaminated construction and a flexible shell that invokes a sky-blown kite or a pristinely unfurled sail. Now we’ve got exciting news for all those interested in the innovative structure: Frohn & Rojas Architects just launched a customizable kit that will let you build your own Wall House!
The Joshua Tree prefab home made quite a splash at Milan’s Zona Tortona exhibit earlier this year, garnering long lines of fairgoers eager to take a look inside. This steel clad prefab is a compact two bedroom “mountain refuge” with a welcoming, and surprisingly roomy, wooden interior. While the exterior finishes might be a bit busy for some tastes, inside are clean, sparse, modern spaces with plenty of natural daylight.
We just caught wind of a beautiful new prefab that takes an innovative approach towards its own structural life-cycle. The Canada based Énóvo House features a sleek modular assembly that’s designed to evolve as the needs of its inhabitants change. Its elegant, angular structure makes excellent use of materials to maximize square footage, and its versatile design is able to adapt to any type of terrain and any climate condition.
We’re always excited to see architects reuse industrial materials, and in the prefab world there’s no match for the simplicity, low cost, and customization capabilities of the stalwart shipping container. We’ve coveredseveralways that architects have up-cycled the durable containers into industrial-chic living spaces, and this incredible home in Wellington, New Zealand, is the latest container redux to catch our eye. Composed of three slate grey containers stacked up like blocks beside a hilltop, it strikes the perfect balance between ruggedly engineered construction and clean modern form.
Added to an end-of-terrace house in North London, Focus House is a delightful prefabricated eco-home for a family of five. Bere Architects, the firm behind the design, used PassivHaus principles to inform their process. The world’s leading energy efficiency standard, Passivhaus recognizes buildings that are so energy efficient all they need is a small electric heater. Focus House is a unique design that embodies the prefab principles of waste reduction and efficiency, and raises the bar on energy-efficient building design.
This month we’re welcoming a brand new builder to the prefab scene as Method Homes launches its first house! The wood clad wonder is currently nearing completion in Seattle, Washington and boasts an array of customizable features backed by a steadfast commitment to sustainable materials and building practices. The “down to earth” prefab’s sleek modern lines and LEED gold aspirations make it the latest modular cabin to catch our eye.
Move over Michelle Kaufman, these new prefabs will leave you and your pet drooling. LA-based Sustainable Pet Design combines green design, healthy living, non-toxic paints and your pet to create this sustainable Greenrrroof Animal House. Now man’s best friend will feel confident that his home has a low environmental impact and that he or she isn’t inhaling toxic fumes all night long.
This gorgeous wood container prefab from Olgga Architects was turning heads at Salon Europeen du Bois in Grenoble last month. At just 70 square meters (about 753 square feet), this energy efficient abode is made of two prefabricated modules perched one on top of the other. Rather than box out the structure with a stacked configuration, the designers pivoted the top unit to create a variety of interesting and integrated outdoor spaces, as well as a variety of structural possibilities.
We have been fans of Canadian architect Carsten Jensen since the inception of his British Columbia-based company Jenesys, which specializes in environmentally responsible buildings. We were completely impressed with the flatpack E-cube design that Jenesys created as a modular kit with extreme energy efficiency. Jenesys now has a new prefab out that is also getting rave reviews. His newest design, Wings, is one Jensen calls “kind of a sexy design,” and we tend to agree. With all of the energy-efficiency of its predecessor, Wings is taking off in great prefab form.
Tending away from the industrious (and eponymous) prefabricated square, the Plus House embraces its Nordic roots and rural setting as a thoroughly modern take on the Swedish barn house. The two-story prefab is situated in Tyresö and was designed by the award winning Claesson, Koivisto, and Rune architects for Arkitekthus. We love how their distinctive design melds a classic wood-paneled profile with ethereal day-lit interiors, synthesizing traditional structure with the best in ultra-efficient modern construction.
As spring pushes forward and lazy, summer nights begin to envelop us, many people will daydream of the great outdoors and when they will be able to camp in tents and hike again. For those who prefer a little more accommodations and accoutrements, the Clara Cabin from hiveMODULAR is a perfect solution. You get all the comforts of cabin life - a bed, reprieve from the bugs, and weather - while still being able to connect to the surrounding nature. Designed and built by hiveMODULAR partner Bryan Meyer and his wife, Anne Ryan, this little woodland getaway is a great example of how versatility makes small spaces livable.
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