Inhabitat » HOM LIFESTYLE: The Whole Green Prefab Package

August 1, 2008

HOM LIFESTYLE: The Whole Green Prefab Package

by Haily Zaki

prefab housing, HOM Lifestyle, KAA Design Group, modular home design, manufactured homes, prefabricated housing, sustainable design, KAA Design Group LA, KAA Design Group Los Angeles, sustainable furniture, green home accessories, hom2.jpg

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.

Simple, purposeful, ecological and crafted, HOM houses are meant as secondary residences; a HOM away from home to which busy urbanites can escape in style. HOMs offer urban amenities and contemporary design blended with rustic touches and sustainable materials. They range in size from 1,000 sf to 3,600 sf and cost approximately $200 per sf. Taking its cues from the 85-year old mobile home industry, HOM will rely on a wide national dealer-distribution net work to deliver its products locally, rather than shipping them cross-country.

Delivered to your site by biodiesel fuel-powered trucks, the axle and wheels remain in place under each HOM allowing your warm, modern pied-a-terre to be moved in the future. Once it arrives, you can fill your HOM with sustainable seating, dining tables, beds, lighting, textiles and accessories. Items range in price from $200 to $3,000 and are crafted to last.

Our top picks are the Alkira chair constructed from woven leather ropes or belts from old sewing machines and the LED Thuma table lamp that can last about 24 hours on one 8-hour charge. With this modern take on the mobile home, you can literally escape in style to the desert for a few years, then move HOM Sweet Home to the sea when the whim takes you.

+ HOM
+ KAA Design Group

11 Responses to “HOM LIFESTYLE: The Whole Green Prefab Package”

apartment7 Says:

August 1st, 2008 at 2:27 pm

i know i’m going to catch some scuff for saying this, but isn’t $200 sq/ft just a tad outrageous? i really love the idea of a modern modular/manufactured home, but how come anything decent is out of reach for people who make less than $75k/yr?

bt Says:

August 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm

it’s style again,
not design.

greenogreen Says:

August 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pm

It’s hilarious to me that all so-called eco friendly sites displays nothing but stuff. There are more products per square inch of screen space in eco-sites than most other type of sites.

Don’t the site owners realize the immense amount of material-energy cost needed to produce a product, especially architectural structure? There is typically on the order of thousands pound of mined ore, discarded waste, water usage and spent fuel required to produce one pound of an average consumer product.

This general fact alone should render all “eco friendly” product site oxymoronic. Try not to consume unnecessary stuff is the only tenet all these sites need to espouse to.

badconsumer Says:

August 1st, 2008 at 7:17 pm

I’m a huge fan of pre-fab and modular and I think it’s great this site promotes the vision, but there is one glaring issue I have with this industry. Almost all of the products, including this one, are essentially designed for more sprawl. They are marketed for use on either suburban or country lots. Not only is the world rapidly urbanising, but North America in particular does not need more dream homes to drive to.

Not only do most of us need better quality, greener urban housing stock, we don’t all have the budget for a country cabin!

Where are the designers and vendors that address urban pre-manufactured housing? Where are the local governments re-thinking zoning to support and encourage factory homes? The fundamental skills in designing and manufacturing these homes are encouraging, but the context is just bad design and definitely not green.

yellow eyes Says:

August 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm

!000sq. ft. @ $200 a sq. ft., is not for the average person and definately not in line for modular homes of that size..

earthsmile Says:

August 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 am

Hi Folks… don’t complain about price. Just do the research. If you do, you’ll find that nothing in this design is proprietary, which is to say that it’s an assemblage a various ideas and construction/design protocols that are well known. This allows you to find a skilled builder and a young up-and coming architect… with whom you can ‘reverse- engineer’ this design for less… if doing so is desired. Yes… this means that this design could be realized for less than $200 a square foot… but just not as an offering from these designers. Hey… it’s free country right ? So enjoy the freedom… Check out: for a cool, prefab foundation system.

earthsmile Says:

August 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 am

OK… URL’s verboten !!!!!! So for the cool foundation…go to ‘pinfoundations’ via google… and ‘diamond pier’ as the product.

Fred Says:

August 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am

I like the similar “eco-friendly” concept. For this purpose, it should be as simple as possible.

meli Says:

September 29th, 2008 at 8:54 pm

Ok I’m interested…why is the HOM site so hard to navigate???

Merlin Says:

October 20th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

It’s not “your average doublewide” because it is a singlewide.

bluefrog62 Says:

November 8th, 2008 at 5:16 am

I understand using recycled products are costly, but $200.00 a square foot is overpriced, especially when you figure in land, a general contractor to level and build the deck, plus shipment of the home. This brings us to close to $400,000.00 for a 1000 square foot home. Out of reach for most families considering a vacation get -away…

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