YOUMEHESHE’S ORGANIC PREFAB HOUSE
by Steve, 09/16/06
At the last London Pecha Kucha event, Youmeheshe architects presented their small but tall ‘organic house’ — a wood pre-fab prototype that was Youmeheshe’s answer to a British-government challenge last year for architects to design an affordable house for under £60,000.
This bio-fueled, wood-clad house that “touches the ground lightly” has been used in Byron Park, Harrow, London, and a wood architecture competition. The design uses a kit of parts – for example a level could be a whole floor or a loft depending on the size of the household – to assemble a house floor-by-floor. The highest models were of a 4 room, 4 story house. The house was conceived with the densely populated city in mind – it would not be unfathomable to build an entire row of houses or a whole London neighbourhood (the UK has a density minimum of 30 dwellings per hectare) using the organic prefab house.
Apparently production on these babies has already begun in southeast London.
This looks like wooden brutalism, we have enough concrete monstrosities of this era in design blighting the landscape of the UK. Slab sides with a wood effect does not make a good or asthetic design. Back to the drwaing board guys!