Inhabitat

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This is great, where is it?

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150$/sq. ft., by 1700 sq ft, is $255,000. it seems that this is catering to the upper-middle class, when things like this are needed en masse. This really needs to be in the 100k-150k range for most of the US to take advantage of this.

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One aspect I need to comment on is the cost of the high-end materials that went into this house. Nanawall is not cheap my friends. I was told those two segments of Nanawall cost $30,000+ and the Marvin windows were around $25k-$30k; so you’re talking about $50k-$60k just in windows. This showhouse was designed with all the bells and whistles, that’s typically what showhouses are for. The house can and will be built for less and have a simlar of not the same look. In comparison, Michelle Kaufmann’s house from last year cost roughly $350/s.f. to build. So this house is considerably cheaper to build from comparision to last year.

One other aspect to this house with regards to saving money is that you save in labor time. When you build a house on a site, the contractor has site managment costs and bills the owner for his/her time building the house. Since SG Blocks can be pre-fabed, it takes considerably less time on site to finish (around 15% less time). This show house was assembled in just under 5 hours and took 4 weeks to build from the time they got the raw containers to the time is was finsihed at the show.

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Before we continue this discussion about the priorities of architects and what “affordable” means, just keep these few above mentioned points in mind. One person’s definition of affordable may be compeltely different than another’s. Look at the comapny call “Design Within Reach”…perfect example. The Harbinger is not a house for Habitat for Humanity nor is it it a HUD house. Many times the term “affordable” is equated to “low-income” which is an incorrect assessment.

My opinion of the Harbinger is that it is a house that could very easily be affordable to a low to moderate income family (without all the bells and whistles). The Show house is just that, a “fully-loaded model home” that demonstrates all the different varieties of green products they could cram into a house on a very tight schedule and budget. so $250k or a “fully-loaded” model home is pretty darn good if you ask anyone. The house is also fully adaptable to all green technology like solar, wind, geo-thermal power; not to mention that you can adapt even more green technology than they’ve shown here.

My assumption is that it could very easily be placed in the nation-mean of $150k-$170k with some slight modificaitons to the materials used and smart editing. Just replace all the expensive windows with more standard (off the shelf) efficiency windows and you’ve already saved about $60k. The cabinets (although are beautiful FSC Certified wood cabinets, could be trimed down to a more modest manufacture and you could save too.

The Entire house had bamboo, cork, and reclamed hickory flooring, very expensive as well. the upstairs could be carpet. The tile work in the baths and the fixtures used are very High-end as well from Rohl. There are more “affordable” alternative “Green” products out there that could be substituted. The show house had many donations/sponsors and were accounted for in the cost of the house.

So these are all examples of why some may consider this out of reach of some buyers but could be trimed down to gain the same affect. It’s been a problem i’m seen in the market that they only show you the most high-end products but there are some out there that get less press but achieve the same “Green” goals. Hopefully Inhabitat could start promoting them as well?