Have things gotten a bit cramped in your home since welcoming a new baby? Belkiz Feedaway is the perfect solution to recoup some space. Certainly sturdy enough to support a smiling little guy (or gal!) within its recycled cardboard frame, this portable seating system can also be flat-packed and slipped out of sight whenever things start getting cluttered!
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We love prefab designs, but we love seeing them come to life even more! Last July, we brought you renderings for the House Arc, a bicycle rack-inspired modular home designed by Joseph Bellomo, and now we’re thrilled to give you a peek of the prototype version which was just unveiled. Prefabricated and flat-packed into a 4-by-10-by-3 foot box, the House Arc can easily be shipped and assembled at its final destination.
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From its modular modern design to its shipping container components, Olgga’s student housing complex struck us as a pitch perfect project for prefab friday. The French architecture firm designed the complex to be constructed from 100 repurposed shipping containers. Talk about putting your students in a box!
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The European Solar Decathlon takes place this summer, and the competition is already heating up with some stunning designs for zero energy homes! One of the first we’ve seen is the FabLab House from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Completely unlike any of the designs we saw in the US competition, the solar panel-coated passive house is rounded and built off the ground.
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Thailand-based modular home designer Site-Specific has announced that they are expanding their line and have even formed a new company specifically devoted to prefab homes for the Thai Market. The first home in their new line is the MDL 5.5×6, a home inspired by the shipping container but modified to make it more practical and livable. Made from recycled materials, the one bedroom prefab home is modern, simple, and totally affordable.
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Our hearts reach out to the people of Haiti who are trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of this week’s horrific earthquake. The country still has an incredibly long road ahead of them – first, in rescuing survivors and then providing them with safe, healthy and environmentally friendly shelters. Since Hurricane Katrina, a number of individuals and companies have worked to develop new and improved emergency relief structures. Read on to see the ones that we hope can be put to use in Haiti.
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Straw bale construction is both sustainable and remarkably energy efficient, and its organic nature can create some incredibly beautiful homes. But this building technique is not for everyone, nor every climate, and using straw bales in construction requires an almost artisan-like craftsmanship. A prefab company in the UK called ModCell, has taken an innovative approach that merges straw bale construction with prefabricated panels, with an end result that is highly attractive, energy-efficient and very sustainable. If prefab is your thing, ModCell is definitely a company you’ll want to look into.
These new M112 Pod Miniatures by Paris Renfroe Design are diminutive counterparts to the life-sized shipping container homes which are rising in popularity as green living space options. These tiny dwellings for dolls boast a Baltic birch interior ceiling, walls …
While not totally prefabricated, the Manifesto House by Infiniski utilizes pre-made materials like shipping containers and wooden pallets to create a totally rad modern house. Infiniski’s mission is to build homes cheaply and quickly using sustainable materials while incorporating renewable energy systems. They have many designs already available, which can be interchanged and easily modified.
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Hive Modular recently unveiled a brand new pre-fabulous house chock full of eco-friendly materials and lots of high-tech home system controls. Situated in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, the new X-Line 003 is a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home that boasts clean lines and a sleek interior. There are a lot of prefab companies out there serving up brilliant concepts, but not all of them have actually built a house. Hive Modular has — quite a few actually — and they’ve got the project gallery to show for it.
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If pop art were to cross paths with prefab housing, the result would likely look this Warhol-worthy prefab home. Designed by Austin + Mergold, A-House-In-A-Can is a single-family residence built in the round interior of a grain silo. Constructed with off-the-shelf components and clad with a prefabricated steel facade, this innovative prefab home design could be the perfect solution for your Warhol-loving, farm-living dreams.
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This prefab concept house, Mini40, comes out of Austria and has a slant towards the increasingly popular Passiv-Haus design method, which promotes a very tight and low-energy design. Hailing from Innsbruck, architect Mario Handle designed this passive home so that it doesn’t require any conventional heating. In fact, in good solar locations, it could be completely off-grid, powered by photovoltaics. The Mini40 was also designed to be constructed with modular parts, and reminds us a little bit of Werner Sobek’s modular homes, although the Mini40 has a slightly warmer aesthetic. And with just as many variations as Sobek’s homes, including the Mini60, Mini80 and Mini120, the concept can be expanded to become a larger-sized home or even multi-family housing.
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San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is currently undergoing a massive renovation as an aging section of the East Bay span is replaced with a new one, and the old conduit has fired up architects’ imaginations for new ways to use the soon-to-be abandoned space. Inspired by the success of New York’s recently opened High Line Park, Rael San Fratello Architects haver proposed a hanging neighborhood and sky park complete with 1.92 miles of bicycle paths, climbing walls, gardens, and meadows.
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It must be eco-stadium madness here at Inhabitat, because here’s yet another stadium design, this time as part of Tokyo’s bid proposal for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Tomorrow is the big day for the International Olympic Committee, who will be deciding the host city for the 2016 games. Tokyo is hoping to entice the IOC with their sustainably oriented plan, use of solar power, renovation of existing facilities and compact layout of the Olympic Village. Tokyo is up against some very strong competitors though and will have shine brightly to win the bid over Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro.
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Today is the first day of West Coast Green, and this year’s showhouse is a stunner! Designed by San Francisco-based Green Horizon, the self-sustaining prefab home is an immediately deployable emergency shelter that can be configured to adapt to a remarkable range of situations. By focusing upon simple sturdy construction, prefabricated modular parts, and a bevy of green building strategies, Green Horizon has created a home that can sustain a family of four with a week’s worth of food, electricity, and water without external support. I met with CEO James Pope to take a tour of the modular wonder before the show – read on for the full scoop!
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After finding an affordable and convenient warehouse space in the industrial section of Santa Ana, Orange County, local printing company MVP decided to turn part of their premises into an office space. The warehouse wasn’t equipped to accommodate private offices, and the company felt that keeping the whole space climate-controlled would be wasteful, so they decided to group 10 20-foot shipping containers inside the warehouse to act as offices. The warehouse’s new industrial-chic workspaces proved to be an affordable option that continues to save the company on energy bills.
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An exciting new development in the world of prefab designs happened today, when Blu Homes, an East coast prefab home designer, announced that they had acquired the assets of mkDesigns, Michelle Kaufman’s prefab home design company. Back in May we were so saddened to hear that Michelle was closing the doors of her firm due to the crash in the housing market. This new development is huge and combines the manufacturing capabilities of Blu Homes with Michelle’s amazing talent, letting her continue doing what she does best – design fabulous green homes.
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As more people filter into the city, open land to build on will become more and more scarce, and we may have to use every available bit of space we can, including empty bare walls, bridge pylons, and retaining walls. The Prefab Parasite, designed by Australia-based Lara Calder Architects, is such a structure — aiming to turn previously empty vertical surfaces into livable and attractive private space. Mimicking parasitic qualities, the home is designed for durability and adaptability, evident in its construction out of prefabricated panels so that the home can be affixed onto any wall or pylon large and strong enough to hold it.
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Harnessing daylight in the busy and narrow streets of London is a remarkable challenge for any architect. Recently ALA met that challenge in their remarkable renovation of the 10 Hills Place office. Using a bit of ingenuity and a bit of shipmaking technology, the architects created a sculptural facade that is as beautiful as it is effective. It’s been said that you can’t judge a building by it’s facade, but for this building, that is precisely what we are going to do.
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Shipping container homes just keep on getting cooler. Developers Katie Nichols and John Walker along with architect Christopher Robertson wanted to create affordable and sustainable homes for the emerging hipster crowd – modern, colorful and creative. This single-story home, located on the outskirts of downtown Houston in a “transitional neighborhood,” is made from 4 shipping containers sourced from nearby ports. The house is constructed using some fairly advanced building techniques that make it an extremely sturdy and well insulated structure, not to mention incredibly cool.
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