July 16th, 2007 | Tags Prefab
via Washington Post
Loblolly House, an environmentally sustainable weekend retreat on the Eastern Shore, was built in six weeks from precision-cut panels embedded with all the necessary pipes, wires and windows.
Designed on a computer in the Philadelphia office of the firm, KieranTimberlake, the house’s 3-D construction specs were e-mailed to a custom builder in New Hampshire, who turned out a flat pack of precision-cut panels embedded with all the necessary pipes, wires and windows. Those panels were shipped to Maryland on the beds of standard 8 1/2 -foot-wide tractor-trailers.
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July 9th, 2007 | Tags Prefab
LV Kit Home via Walker Art Center
Andrew Blauvelt: Today’s modern prefab, is not reducible to a uniform aesthetic criteria or a predictable material palette. There are, of course, similarities and generalities that can be seen in the current offerings: a penchant for minimal rooflines, large expanses of glass, and a range of finish options. Although today’s projects share the optimism of postwar prefab, they lack the totalizing vision and utopian ambitions of some of their predecessors. It is a much more contingent affair, with production expressed in tactical terms: How much customization can exist without sacrificing the efficiencies of mass production? What kind of domestic lifestyle is suggested and supported by this house if the typical single-family home created by the post-war suburb is no longer a given? Even the simple but seemingly heretical idea of architecture as a mass produced product is a decidedly different orientation for architects. However, contemporary prefab could be considered one more way for architectural design to reenter the residential market—an arena in which ninety percent of what is built does not involve an architect. Can prefab offer more ecologically sensitive solutions that are missing in more mainstream housing segments? More importantly, how does one judge the success or failure of recent prefab efforts?
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June 29th, 2007 | Tags Small, Prefab
Alchemy Architects: The weeHouse prefab system is based on a modern aesthetic, efficient use of space, and intelligent adaptation of building technology. From small retreats like the original weeHouse in Wisconsin, and the Marfa weeHouse to larger residential and commercial weeHouses currently in progress around the country, the system is adaptable to a wide range of needs. weeHouses feature streamlined design that celebrates the modular nature of their construction and allows for both playful and poetic potential. System design and prefabrication significantly reduces building costs and makes modern design accessible to the broadest possible audience.
June 22nd, 2007 | Tags Green, Prefab
The First LivingHomes is LEED® certified and designed by Ray Kappe, FAIA. Made of natural, non-toxic and sustainably-derived materials; and they’re made in specially equipped factories that ensure unsurpassed quality, lower construction cost and waste, and shorten schedules.
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