Inhabitat

SUNSET BREEZEHOUSE

Michelle Kaufman’s latest eco-prefab house, the Breezehouse, was unveiled to the public this weekend. The newest “clean and green” prefabricated home is a collaboration between Sunset Magazine and the Bay Area architect who made headlines last year with her Glidehouse (also a collaboration with Sunset magazine). The Breezehouse was on display May 21 and 22, 2005, at Sunset headquarters in Menlo Park, California, as part of Sunset’s annual Celebration Weekend lifestyle-and-product festival. When Kaufmann’s Glidehouse debuted at last year’s event, it helped draw more than 24,000 visitors over two days.

The 1,750-square-foot home is a modular, environmentally sustainable two-bedroom, two-bath dwelling. The signature feature is the Breezeroom at the center of the house. This glass-enclosed space sits under a butterfly-shaped roof which allows air to pass and circulate through the entire house. There are also indoor gardens, and movable glass walls which open the Breezehouse for easy indoor-outdoor living.

I find it intriguing that Sunset Magazine, a fairly conservative suburban homemaker rag, is pushing “green” modernist prefab housing. What is the world coming to? (Mass suburban prefab? One can only hope…

Says Daniel Gregory, Sunset’s home editor:

Sunset, if it’s about anything, it’s about celebrating the climate and setting of the west. The breezehouse is not the answer, but it may be one answer for one segment of the population.

Maybe this is Sunset’s attempt to start appealing to the kids. Makes sense since so many in the next generation of home buyers won’t be able to afford anything other than prefab in desirable urban areas.

There is an excellent article about this in the San Francisco Chronicle >Sunset Magazine’s article >
Michelle Kaufman’s website >

Via Land+Living

3 Responses to “SUNSET BREEZEHOUSE”

Dustin Says:

May 24th, 2005 at 8:48 pm

My real question is… could such a house survive a Canadian winter?

Inhabitat » Blog Archive » PREFAB FRIDAY: Living Homes…Such a deal? Says:

August 4th, 2006 at 1:10 pm

[...] Yes, the Living Home is expensive. Look at it! I can’t believe it’s under $2 million; this is the Cadillac of current prefab designs. Don’t knock it on approachability and affordability, because that’s definitely not the target market which Kappe was designing for. This “product” offers a beautiful, spacious, and quick move-in design for those with sophisticated modern tastes- and relatively deep pockets. There are many other prefab models in production that do provide a more affordable housing option. Tiny ones like the Weehouse, several designs by Michelle Kaufman, and the sub-$100,000 option by Rocio Romero are all good examples. [...]

Inhabitat » PREFAB FRIDAY: DESIGNhabitat 2 House Says:

March 23rd, 2007 at 6:51 am

[...] DESIGNhabitat 2 House uses a centerbay scheme, much like that of Michelle Kaufmann’s Breezehouse, which uses two factory-built modules set on either side of a site-built central space. And while [...]

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