The blogs are full of “best of the year” lists, but architecture moves more slowly – it takes a long time for ideas to get built, technologies to evolve and for knowledge to spread. Instead, we look at the themes and memes of the past decade of architecture in TreeHugger. From the rise of modern prefab to the growth of green roofs, read on for the most notable trends in sustainable building.
Mark Twain had a garden shed; he called it “the loveliest study you ever saw…octagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious window…perched in complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lighting flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my head—imagine the luxury of it.”
But in recent times, the humble garden shed has become an outlet for designers to experiment in small spaces that often slide under the radar of zoning bylaws, providing extra room for study, relaxation or just getting away from everyone else.
Sitting atop thin steel stilts, the Froschköenig Treehouse conjures up ideas of a space pod just landed among a canopy of trees. Designed by well-known treehouse designer and manufacturer, Baumraum, the prefabricated treehouse features a futuristic, curved zinc roof enveloping a more rustic-feeling tatajuba wood foundation to create a whimsical hideaway for kids and adults.
Daniel Libeskind’s latest creation, The Villa, is a step back from his usual large-scale designs, and an attempt to get his foot into the prefab and sustainability design world. An impressive contemporary home, the home is touted as sustainable and energy-efficient. Unlike most humble and affordable prefabricated design, the 3-story home includes a shiny zinc facade and impressive angles — a far cry from the traditional boxy prefab we have grown so accustomed to seeing. And while Libeskind included several eco-friendly building techniques, some seem to be mighty skeptical.
It’s no secret that we dig Sustain miniHomes. Inhabitat has always appreciated their sustainable spin on the mobile home and have eaten up their eye candy since the beginning. But on this fabulous prefab Friday, we have some even more exciting news to report! The Toronto-based builders are coming to Los Angeles to debut their California edition — the first of the 12 WIDE series designed with special consideration for passive cooling and ventilation in a range of California climates.
Fast Food Nation meets Shipping Container Nation in a brilliant concept that not only looks amazing, but probably tastes just as good. The Müvbox is a new concept, which recently emerged from Montreal, Canada and is a shipping container that opens up into a full-fledged mobile, outdoor fast food restaurant. Think Adam Kalkin’s Push Button House with a gourmet kitchen inside and a fabulous graphic paint job. Oh, and they serve local lobster from the Magdalen Islands.
Thinking inside of the box may become the newest trend for creative thinkers thanks to this new 12-unit office and studio building called the “Box Office.” Constructed of 32 shipping containers, the building is meant to be a working haven for companies and individuals looking for a cheerful, comfortable, and eco-friendly place to think. Joe Haskett, the principal at Distill Studio, designed the building to ensure that it would provide a well-insulated and environmentally sensitive environment for its future occupants, which among other features includes high-performing windows and doors and an efficient HVAC system. The project is developed by Truth Box Inc. and recently broke ground this week in Providence, R.I.
Every week on Inhabitat, we feature the best and the brightest in green prefab-ulous designs– so when we saw David Baker’s stunning, tiny Modularean House, we were excited to see that the joy of prefab architecture can now be appreciated even by the littlest connoisseurs. This miniature bamboo version of an …
It’s wonderful to see the popularity of prefabricated architecture spreading everywhere, from urban metropolises to pastoral rural settings. resPOD, a conceptual prefab design by Matthew Grace Architecture who is based in Australia, is a flexible form of housing with several different eco-friendly features including passive solar design and a greywater system. Constructed from shipping containers, the homes would be retro-fitted in a factory for quick and energy-efficient production, offering prospective homeowners a greener option when it comes to purchasing a home.
We love this prefab home because it’s extremely energy efficient and affordable coming in at under $75,000 for the smaller model and under $94,000 for the larger model. Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturers of mobile homes in the U.S., recently released this high tech green home that is far removed from your standard trailer park dwelling.
Modular and prefabricated building techniques conserve many resources and have a much lighter impact on the environment than traditional construction practices, but we often see that they are still single-family homes. So when we came across Garrison Architects‘ modular Artists-in-Residence, we were excited to see that the designers used modular architecture to accomodate living in a dense urban environment. The student dormitory, developed for Pratt Institute, is modeled on the community lifestyle characteristic of student life. A model of environmental sensitivity, the building is host to a slew of eco-friendly features, such as passive ventiliation, but also offers the students plenty of flexible, open space to encourage creativity.
A new project in the city of Amsterdam recently received approval: a 22-unit office building designed by Allard Architecture that will use prefabricated concrete “matchboxes.” The office building is fittingly dubbed the Matchbox building, given the segmented quality of the stacked and angled boxes that lend themselves to a facade characterized by large picture windows and units that cantilever out over the sidewalk. The finished look appears playful, modern and creative — perfect for the artistic neighborhood in Amsterdam North.
We love covering prefab homes here on Inhabitat because we think prefab is an amazingly efficient, promising and innovative way of building houses, and we find this especially true with these Hangar Prefabs from Hangar Design Group. The streamlined and contemporary design makes us believe that our lives could be just that simple and organized, if only we lived in one of these prefabs. Designed by Juan and Sara Matiz, who now live in New York City, but are Colombian and Italian respectively, these three stylish prefab homes can fit just about anyone’s tastes.
Inhabitat’s Prefab Friday column has seen its fair share of shipping container homes, but we’ve never seen shipping containers paired with bamboo as a construction material before. But now, Bamboo Groves, a design and construction firm in Costa Rica, has developed some great designs for homes made from insulated shipping containers and bamboo. Developed for the tropical climate, these prefab homes are different from the designs we are accustomed to — those designed for temperate or cooler climates. Many of these prefab and shipping container homes focus on passive heating and cooling. But in warmer climates, such as Central America, construction requires a different tactic – insulating from the heat and providing lots of natural ventilation to help cool.
This modern and warm prefab home is a stunning example of the beauty and quality you can achieve through the efficiency of prefab construction.. Inspired by multiple cultures, this eye-catching design by Austin-based Bercy Chen Studio features outdoor living space, water features and lots of windows to create a comfortable and attractive home. The home is constructed with a modular steel frame and thermasteel panels for an efficient and waste-minimizing design. With two families living in this home, the architects divided the house, providing separate, but inter-connected living areas for each family.
We all love the idea of prefab homes – the simplicity of ready-made, to-go houses, and yet most of the time when we sit down to really study the plans with respect to our own lives and dreams, there’s just something lacking. We want prefab-style homes, but designed exactly to our lives and needs. If you’re like us, then you might enjoy checking out a new prefab designer: Stillwater Dwellings, based out of Seattle, WA. This new firm has many traditional prefab homes ready to go, but also allows you to design your own from their pre-designed modules.
Prefabricated design welcomes the weary traveler at CitizenM Hotels, where luxury accommodations are available at economical prices thanks to the streamlined production of the modular units that make up the buildings. The Amsterdam-based company is able to offer affordable prices by keeping their construction costs low through a process called “Industrial Flexible Demountable,” which means modular units or “luxury pods” are fabricated off-site and then stacked together to construct a building. With an ultra sleek look, the hotel offers a hip, youthful vibe that helps keep anyone’s pocketbook full.
Re-using existing resources and a fabulous design sense combine to create this versatile and easily adaptable piece of container architecture, the Greentainer Project in Gandino, Italy. The Greentainer is a shipping container that has been gutted to provide flexible public space, perfect for a number of uses. And the best bit, as it is a container, one can simply pick it up, and haul it away to another location.
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.
Modernist architect Ralph Rapson has managed this to reinterpret a 60-year old design with the green panache of a 21st century prefab. The Rapson Greenbelt, an articulate series of prefab dwellings, is derived from a 1945 design called Case Study #4, which debuted back then as part of Arts & Architecture’s Case Study House Program. Today, the Rapson Greenbelt is part of the modern home portfolio from WIELER, the award-winning providers of custom prefab homes.
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
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