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.
Architect Dustin Ehrlich has created a custom prefab home near Chapel Hill, NC. Commissioned by his parents and constructed by WIELER, the structure mixes stone, wood, stainless steel and rusted corrugated metal to create an extraordinary first, and lasting, impression. While undeniably modern, the structure’s aesthetic also draws on the local architectural styles of nearby tobacco barns from previous centuries.
Just off the Brazilian coast in São Paulo, architect Andrade Morettin has created Residencia RR - a stunning summer abode nestled amidst the dense vegetation and semi-tropical, hot, humid climate of Itamambuca in the state’s north coast. Responding to the local environment, House RR is selectively protected from and open to the elements. Under a primary “shell” the home shelters from intense sun and rains but allows much desired natural cross-ventilation to permeate through living spaces. With prefabricated components and an elevated foundation, the construction sits lightly on its site with a low ecological impact.
Up until fairly recently, Rocio Romero fans could only visit a fully realized public version of her enormously successful LV prefab in Missouri. Then, last month, a privately-owned and newly completed Rocio Romero LV home was open to the public in the Hudson Valley, NY. When we ran the news of the New York LV open house tour, many of you asked us to keep you posted when Romero’s homes were accessible elsewhere. Well, West Coasters, hang on to your hats because there’s a new LV in town - a Rocio Romero LV is open for tours and much more against the amazing backdrop of Napa County, just a short drive north of San Francisco, and Inhabitat’s hometown in Marin County.
Ever dreamed of owning a completely self-sufficient home that produces its own energy, water, and is completely customizable? New York architect Scott Specht has the answer to all of our zero-energy prefab dreams with the new ZeroHouse™. This completely self-sustaining prefabricated house generates its own power, collects its own water, processes its own waste and is 100% automatic. Versatile, durable and site-sensitive, ZeroHouse can be erected in almost any location in one day with steel frame components and a helical-anchor foundation system that requires no excavation.
Now in its fourth year running, the eVolo Skyscraper Competition takes future-forward architecture to its breaking point, unveiling a stunning array of new structural concepts by architects, engineers, and designers. The latest crop of entries is up, and Daekwon Park’s Symbiotic Interlock goes far beyond the standard skyscraper to envision a total renovation of inner-city infrastructure. The pitch: it’s modular, prefabricated, and completely symbiotic on the existing vertical infrastructure of the city.
Two years of development have found the world’s first production FlatPak house well on track to becoming a real home for the Goodwin-Wise family. Artist and owner Amy Goodwin recently posted a stunning set of photos on her website to document the construction progress of her Flatpak home, showcasing the modern design marvel in fine form. Nestled amid verdant greenery in Massachusetts, the Goodwin-Wise house has weathered some kinks in the woodwork (i.e. a two year assembly period), but by the looks of things the streamlined process and final product have been well worth the wait.
LivingHome’s KT1.1 Expandable Single Family Residence
The environmentally conscious, award winning architects KieranTimberlake always manages to amaze us with stunning residential designs that define the true synthesis of green building and architectural excellence. We’ve also been equally enthralled by the business vision of Steve Glenn’s LivingHomes, a development company which has been extremely successful in commissioning and building architecturally-stunning green prefabs. Until now, KieranTimberlake and Living Homes were connected only by their shared drives to bring the best green residential designs to market, but this week the firms announced a partnership to design an exciting new line of versatile, sustainable, and modern prefabs that will make green living affordable and stylish.
The Abōd™ is a prototype prefab created by BSB Design for use as affordable housing in South Africa. The simple design uses a strong, natural shape as the core. It’s durable, lightweight and can be easily shipped in a compact box for quick on-site assembly. Perhaps it’s the shape or the vibrant colors of the corrugated paneling, but this design brings a cheerful presence to a very serious issue: addressing the need for high-quality, low-cost solutions to South Africa’s housing shortage.
We’ve been waiting and hoping for more from New Zealand architect Andre Hodgskin who first wowed us with BACHKIT™, a gorgeous holiday home of prefab pavilions designed in 2000. Hodgskin’s newest design is every bit as enticing. With the iPAD™, Hodgskin brings a stylish, versatile option to the prefab world with a bevy of possible configurations, finishes and even a choice in how you’d like it to arrive – it can be manufactured off-site and transported whole or shipped as a kitset for on-site assembly.
The British government recently launched a new super stringent green building rating system called The Code For Sustainable Homes. Code Six is the level that all new residences will be required to achieve in 2016, and is, for all intents and purposes, a requirement that all new homes emit no carbon emissions. Now greenbuilding company ZedFactory has taken it upon themselves to create a code six, zero-emission prefab home. In an attempt to reconceptualize the idea of what a super-efficient home should be, ZEDfactory introduced the RuralZED, which they claim is Britain’s most affordable green prefab home and is also able to meet its strictest energy standards. Oh, and did we mention that it is a flatpack?
LivingHome’s KT1.1 Expandable Single Family Residence
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