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.
The final results just rolled in from this year’s Solar Decathlon, and team Germany’s sleek surPLUShome finished first in an incredible upset victory! The German team took top honors in the Net Metering and Engineering categories this morning, steamrolling the competition to secure their second Decathlon win. This year’s home features a sleek, dark facade that is almost completely covered in photovoltaic panels and can provide more than twice the amount of energy it needs. Check out our cool video from America.gov about the house after the jump!
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.
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.
Pod living is becoming a new trend in prefab design — small houses carefully designed to contain everything you need to sustain yourself in a small space. Broisson Architects of Naucalpan, Mexico has a new design for a prefab and modular pod house – Shelter No 2. This three-story home is designed for any socio-economic level, and contains enough room sleeping space for 3, a kitchen, reading and living area and hydroponia area. Able to be constructed at a speedy pace and built from recycled materials, the architects think this home could be a model for affordable housing.
Whether you think form follows function or function follows form, the Pentimento House proves that form and function can work gracefully together. An elegant and contemporary version of the Lincoln Log House, architects Jose Maria Sáez and David Barragán purposefully stacked prefabricated concrete pieces so that spaces were left in-between, allowing air to flow through …
Located on a site with some bumpy topography, the Bridge House floats on steel trusses that literally bridge the gap between two sloping hillsides. The owners of this home saw opportunity when they discovered a creek running through their lot and rather than build somewhere else, they wanted to take advantage of the views offered by a location near the creek bed. The finished home, which resides about an hour outside of Adelaide, Australia, not only retains the surrounding environment’s rustic charm, but is sustainably built, makes use of many local materials and relies on the sun for its heating needs.
Pre-built homemakers extraordinaire, Marmol Radziner Prefab were in the news this week once again introducing their newest custom prefab home. High up in the hills above Los Angeles sits the new Hollywood Hybrid, a 2576 sq. ft. sustainable, modern prefab home with killer views and a minimal carbon footprint. Inhabitat went up to the site where the home was being built for a peek.
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.
Small houses are the new black right now, and this practical little living space couldn’t be more in vogue. The “Shed,” designed by Manchester-based FKDA Architects, provides all the necessary amenities for living in a compact unit. Designed for those in need of affordable and practical space, the Shed is sustainably built from FSC certified wood, with a healthy interior, efficient use of interior space, and it can run off renewable energy.
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.
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.
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.
Container homes are popping up all over the place, but not many multi-unit developments have been built from containers. This proposed 200-unit apartment complex, designed by San Francisco-based Group 41 and their brainchild Container Nation, would use nearly 1,000 used shipping containers. The designers have developed two schemes for the Salt Lake City suburb complex and are waiting for planning approval. Two schemes differ in style and layout, but not amenities. Both include a large underground parking garage as well as a courtyard. Located near both a future commuter rail line and shopping center, the new development strives to have sustainable written all over it.
Not everyone wants to live in a shipping container for the sake of eco-efficiency. That’s why homes such as this half-prefab, half-custom — or prefab hybrid, if you will — might just be the solution for those still on the fence about prefab and modular architecture. This home, entitled The Wedge, was designed by Studio B Architecture and constructed by BuildSense for North Carolina couple, Scott and Vikki Metheny, and their two boys. Composed of three modular parts that were fabricated off-site in a factory and a main two-story living area that was built on-site, the home is a total of 1,829 square feet.
Generally speaking a home needs to have a place to sleep, eat and groom. Beyond that, everything else is just extraneous. That’s why Japanese designers Jo Nagasaka and Schemata Architecture Office teamed up to design and build this prototype Paco Unit. Their vision was to produce a new portable, compact, and independent unit that contained only the things that a person needed to live, maybe not comfortably, but practically.
Lofted high above in the trees, Mathier Collos’ EcoCoon retreats are a conceptual design for prefabricated housing. Each of the London-based architect’s cocoon-like pod is outfitted with an array of sustainable features including rainwater collection, a greywater system, and biomass heating. And depending on the type of tree used and the tree branching density, solar panels can also be integrated to help make these pods as eco-sensitive as possible. The two-story, split-level retreats can comfortably accommodate two adults or a small family and larger models may be able to act as a small, quaint hostel with several guests.
The BrightBuilt Barn, located in Rockwood, Maine, is one of the super energy-efficient prefab designs of the year. A highly covetable structure, this barn/studio is not only a net-zero house — meaning it strives to leave no carbon footprint — it is also seeking LEED Platinum certification. While the current prototype was designed as a studio/workspace, the barn is constructed on 4-foot modules so additional modules can be added as specified. But we think one of the most interesting features of the prefab is the LED light skirt that lets you know if the building is generating more or less energy than it is using.
Enterprising young artists in the London scene are usually presented with the dilemma of having to rent extremely expensive studio space in order to be able to work. This led furniture designer Auro Foxcroft to a rather ingenious and environmentally conscious solution. What was it? Take old subway cars, mount them on a rooftop, and use them for office space! A bit sparse? Sure! But these recycled subway cars are sure to inspire other green-minded, socially conscious artistic efforts.
Blu Homes is a relative newcomer to the prefab design world. That being said, they are in the midst of two projects that should be completed by Spring 2009. One is in Blue River, Colorado and the other is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Blu Homes focuses on more than good contemporary and energy efficient design. With a Blu Home, you’ll get a fun and beautiful design, but you’ll also get walked through the whole process from site evaluation, permitting, financing, design, site work all the way through construction and finishing the home. And you’ll know the price right from the start because it’s a package deal. Not many other prefab builders offer that service, especially at the affordable price they’re guaranteeing on their website.
Swedish architecture firm Kjellgern Kaminsky Architectus has recently unveiled six compelling designs for zero-energy, passive prefab homes; meaning the homes take advantage of passive design strategies so as to consume zero net energy. The passive prefab home designs were shown at the Stockholm Housing Fair, which was open from October 9-12, 2008. The six designs range from 1,076 square feet to 2,045 square feet– accommodating as many as four bedrooms. That means whether you are a young professional or have a growing family, Kjellergen Kaminsky Architectus has a zero-energy, passive house that can suit your lifestyle.
Environmentally-savvy and forward-thinking architecture firm KieranTimberlake Associate has high hopes of bringing customized prefabricated homes to the masses starting with their new Cellophane House. As one of the five full-scale prefab productions at MoMA’s exhibit, Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, the Cellophane House is the latest iteration of the firm’s research and investigation into new fabricating processes and sustainable customized homes. The firm’s goal is to make these homes available at a variety of scales. The prototype is a 1800 square-foot two-bedroom, two-bathroom house and was assembled on MoMA grounds in a mere 16 days. If its ease of construction doesn’t amaze you, consider the aluminum frame and structural polycarbonate floor plates. Or the easy bolt connections that facilitated the easy assembly and the available built-in environmentally-friendly features, and then you just might be wondering if you covet the ingenuity behind these homes.
If the idea of escape seems all the more enticing now that the rest of the world is caught in the back-to-school rush, here’s another amazing prefab remedy for your wanderlust. Escape to the beach, the mountains or the trees in San Francisco-based Kyu Che’s sustainable Lifepod. Loosely based on the traditional Mongolian ger (or ‘yurt’ as the Russian translation goes), the Lifepod is at once organic and high-tech. Built to be highly portable, the Lifepod is a fully functioning, off-the-grid mini capsule for modern nomadic living.
Travelodge recently opened a hotel in Uxbridge, England that is constructed entirely from prefabricated shipping containers. The completed design uses eighty-six containers of various sizes that were retrofitted into bedrooms and bolted together onsite. The exterior has been clad and fitted with windows, thus converting the assemblage into a seamless 120-bedroom hotel. Verbus Systems estimates that the structure’s prefab composition saved the hotel chain more than half a million pounds and at least 10 weeks of construction.
For those of us not fortunate enough to attend the MOMA’s recent Home Delivery exhibition, Scribe Media has assembled an excellent video that takes an in-depth look at five of today’s cutting-edge prefabs. Chock full of interviews with architects and led by Chief Curator of Architecture & Design Barry Bergdoll, it’s a must-see for anyone interested in a current survey of the potential of prefabricated housing.
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.
We checked in on the green rebuilding efforts in Greensburg, Kansas when Planet Green’s docu-series premiered last month. We found plenty of interesting developments, but this prefab from Studio804 of the University of Kansas School of Architecture is definitely one of the most memorable. Built as the community art center, this innovative building uses modular design with the length of long truck trailers as the defining width component measure – an outside the box thinking that makes larger prefab buildings possible.
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.
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.
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.
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