Tag Archives: Prefab Architecture

This “Tesla of prefabricated homes” plans to bring eco-friendly prefab houses to your doorstep

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Don’t you just wish sometimes that you could “build” a house online and then order it just the way you like it? Well, now you actually can to some extent as a company called Dimensions X is aiming to be the Tesla of prefabricated homes. Plus, just like the environmentally friendly car company whose model they are following, the houses they will be offering homes that are energy efficient and will offer less carbon footprint.

Designer: Peter Stutchbury

Australian entrepreneur Oscar Martin partnered with architect Peter Stutchbury to create a company that can offer people their prefabricated homes with a few clicks on their website. The process isn’t yet as simple as ordering a Tesla but they do have an online configurator that will tell you how much it will cost you as soon as you build your prefab home and make certain changes to it. There are modules and elements that you can modify to make it your own.

They have already come up with their first prototype called OM-1, an energy-efficient home that’s around 613-square feet. It’s made from cross-laminated timber (CLT) which lessens its carbon footprint and has a flat roof with eaves. You will be able to choose things like the length and size of the entire house as well as placements of doors and windows, finishes, orientations, and other elements that you can personalize.

Of course, there are a lot of energy-efficient elements that you can choose to add to your prefab home. You can choose to add beehives, mineral pools, rainwater tanks, composting, etc. They also do not use concrete and instead use something called Surefoot Footing as its foundation which will let you put up the house on any terrain without disrupting the land on which it will stand on. The idea is to make your entire home not just easy to put together but to leave as little carbon footprint when building it.

Once you’ve finalized all your options, it will take them six weeks to build your dream house and then ship them to you on your home site where it will be ready for assembly. There will eventually be a step-by-step guide so anyone will be able to build the home by following the instructions. You will still be able to remove walls, rotate elements, switch windows and doors, and even add extra eaves for storage.

The process isn’t that seamless yet as houses are much more complicated than cars. But the goal of Dimension X is to make it as simple as possible while giving users as many options as they can to make the houses they’re ordering truly their own.

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Revel in a machine aesthetic, prefab holiday apartment aboard a cruise ship

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If you had to spend a sufficient amount of time on a ship, you would want to have pretty comfortable lodgings. Alas, not all of us could afford to go on luxurious cruises let alone go on a private cruise aboard a luxury line. But that doesn’t mean we can’t dream or marvel at what glorious living conditions are out there for those who can afford to do so. This pre-fabricated holiday apartment is one such thing we can only wonder about unless you can someday go aboard the largest private cruise ship in the world.

Designer: Michael K. Chen

Inspired by the Unite D’Habitation housing typology by Swiss-French architect and designer Le Corbusier, the Pied-à-Mer is a 600-square foot luxury holiday apartment on a private cruise ship. As expected of course, it has a nautical theme but with midcentury, modernist influences. It starts out as a one-bedroom living space but can morph into a two-bedroom space for when they get visits from friends or family members.

The entire space can turn into a two-bedroom space with two bathrooms, a kitchen, a sitting area, a dressing room, and a trunk room. There’s also space for an entry hall and storage space which you’d need if you’re staying for a longer period than just a weekend. The foyer has the storage on one side and then a coat closet on the other side. The entryway has the guest closet on the left and the guest bathroom on the right, leading to the kitchen, living space, and a sliding door that opens up to a terrace with a view of the open seas.

The apartment is made up of prefab pod-like volumes which were created in Austria, and then they were installed on the ship in Spain for five weeks while the ship was undergoing its dry-dock maintenance. The pods, cladding, cabinets, and all the functional elements were all pre-fabricated, and some, like the folding table were created in New York before being shipped and installed in the apartment.

Speaking of the dining table, when it’s not being used for eating, it can be tucked away, and then the space is converted into a guest bedroom by lowering the guest bed. That bed as well as the main one comes with integrated nightstands, lighting, and even shelving. There is also a sliding door to give some sense of privacy between the two bedrooms. The fabricated pieces come in a blue and gray colored ribbed aluminum finish to give it a “slightly machine aesthetic” in keeping with the “machine for living” concept from Le Corbusier.

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This series of tiny prefabricated structures includes a home, remote office, and sauna

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My Cabin is a series of prefabricated structures like a tiny home, a detached office for remote working, and even a sauna.

Girts Draugs found all the rest and relaxation he was looking for in tiny, prefabricated homes. Surging in popularity due to stay-at-home orders, tiny homes have been around for a while but only recently took off. Our collective need to head back to nature has prompted many of us to find ways of staying there.

Designer: Girts Draugs for My Cabin

While building a new home from scratch or renovating an old, dilapidated one are certainly options to make that happen, Draugs found more promise and more convenience in designing prefabricated homes. My Cabin, Draugs’s collection of prefabricated structures, features three types of dwellings: a home, sauna, and remote office.

My Milla, the company’s most popular prefabricated structure, is a two-floor tiny cabin finished in spruce wood that’s perfect for short stays in nature to get away from the stress of city life. The internal space of My Milla leaves enough room for a spacious living room, kitchen, bathroom, and main bedroom. The cabin amounts to 265 square feet with a top floor that overlooks the living room and double-glazed plastic windows that run the height of the first floor.

The second structure is called My Kalmus, which covers around 187 square feet to be used as a detached office or den. Inside, the structure keeps an open-floor layout without any frills or surprises, except for integrated features like steam insulation. Finished in finely sawed spruce wood, My Kalmus also comes with lofty, double-glazed plastic windows to bring guests closer to the outdoors.

Finally, each prefab home needs at least one accessory building. Enter My Galia, the 110-square-foot sauna structure. Inside, planks of black alder wood finish the sauna to provide natural insulation while residents find rest in the heated room.

While each home serves a distinct purpose, convenient comforts like a cast-iron stove, electric heater, and terrace are integrated into My Milla and My Kalmus structures. Each cabin is also customizable, allowing buyers to choose their home’s finishes, window placements, doors, and furniture.

An external fire pit provides ample warmth inside and outside the cabin.

The sauna is paneled in black alder wood for natural insulation.

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Classic American architecture and prefab building methods reimagine this modern tiny home

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Nestron is a new generation of tiny home builders that combines classic American architectural elements and prefabricated building processes to deliver ready-to-live tiny homes.

Interior design has the power to completely transform living spaces into rooms that are defined by a certain mood, whether it be through rustic minimalist furnishings like hand-carved wooden bedside tables or subtle mid-century modern elements like brass knobs. With so many tiny homes coming out in recent years, each home’s unique interior design is what ultimately sets one apart from another.

Designer: Nestron

Nestron, a new generation of tiny living home builders, designs fully prefabricated homes with built-in furniture and a smart home system, delivered in a ready-to-live formula. The Legend Two from prefabricated architecture company Nestron is a prefab, tiny home that marries stylish design with classical elements. Today, the homebuilders at Nestron released the next generation of Legend Two, dubbed Legend Two X.

Built as an extension to the Legend Two series, the X generation expands its preceding model by 7.9 square meters, for a total of 33.4 square meters. The builders at Nestron expanded the prefabricated tiny home to accommodate full-size appliances like refrigerators and washing machines without compromising the home’s available living space. Inspired by classic American architecture, the exterior of Legend Two X’s prefab homes keeps an approachable, elegant appearance while maintaining a bit of decorative restraint.

The Legend Two X Folksy was designed by Nestron to combine the traditional elements of classic American architecture with some mid-century modern and Scandinavian-inspired design elements. Like the other homes in the series, the Folksy model hosts large, floor-to-ceiling windows to complement the interior’s bright white walls.

“We aim to bring back a sense of nostalgia with this rustic design,” the architects suggest, “The light tone used in this structure creates a lively and warm atmosphere.”

Moving one step towards flapper-era elegance, the L2X Opulent model replaced Folksy’s bright walls with darker tones to create a sense of tranquility. Achieving a look that’s both “modest [and] extravagant, yet timeless,” Nestron designers outfitted the Opulent model with metallic features and detailing to tie the whole mood together. The L2X Luxe model reimagines modern luxury by fusing silk and delicate interior details with modern furnishings like brass faucets and white marble coffee tables.

The L2X Folksy strikes a balance between bohemian chic and Scandinavian-inspired minimalism. 

Brass fittings and marble countertop seep timeless elegance over the entirely of L2X Opulent and Luxe models.

Floor-to-ceiling windows evoke subtle elements of classic American architecture. 

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Plant Prefab’s patented home building system uses sustainable construction methods to design affordable housing

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Plant Prefab, a sustainable home construction company committed to prefabricated buildings, launched its patented Plant Building System, allowing for home construction that produces less waste and requires little to no land alteration.

Contributing to nearly 40% of the planet’s carbon greenhouse emissions, home-building generally involves the excessive use of resources, construction waste, and land alterations. As the world moves toward environmental consciousness, various industries are following suit.

Designer: Plant Prefab

In direct response to the world’s cities facing rapid urbanization and large-scale construction projects, Plant Prefab is a sustainable building company that constructs prefabricated homes from a patented Plant Building System™.

With the demand for residential homes increasing by the day, more and more architects are opting for prefabricated building methods. Prefabricated building methods, just like Plant Prefab’s Plant Building System™, allow architects to construct homes during circumstances that otherwise would not allow for construction to take place.

Explaining this in regard to a custom single-family home designed by the Brown Studio, Plant Prefab says, “Plant prefabricated the home during the late fall and early winter when on-site construction would have been nearly impossible.”

In addition to being able to construct a home during colder seasons, the construction process of prefabricated homes is contained within off-site factories, requiring fewer skilled laborers and producing far less waste from shipping and handling.

Amounting to a construction process that’s 20% to 50% faster than conventional building methods, Plant Prefab’s patented system takes on a hybrid, modular model for home building. Leaning on a modular building system, the method is adaptive by design. As the construction process continues, endless configurations can be brainstormed so that adjustments can be made as needed.

While Plant Prefab is currently committed to custom builds, the company hopes to produce around 900,000square feet of living space per year, which would amount to approximately 800 units of varying sizes. Formed as a solution to combat the impending housing crisis, Plant Prefab’s Plant Building System™ hopes to join its focus from single and multi-family units with larger-scale developments, like student-based and affordable housing.

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Prefab Architecture designed to be the eco-friendly + economical housing solutions we need in 2021!

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Prefabricated architecture has been gaining a lot of popularity and momentum recently! It basically involves making buildings or building various components at a particular location, one that is better suited for construction, and then once completed, transporting it to the final site or location. Prefab architectural designs have a multitude of benefits – they keep costs down, ensure projects are more sustainable and efficient, and they also prioritize and pay attention to simplicity and modularity. And we have curated a collection of our favorite prefabricated designs for you – from cozy tiny homes to a sustainable home that looks like a cruise ship! These prefabricated designs are a part of a growing trend in modern architecture, and could be the future of it as well!

Meet ARCspace, a modular architecture firm that is constantly creating innovative designs and material development to do its part in curbing the emissions for their industry using sustainable, affordable, prefabricated homes. All structures are prefabricated for highly efficient and quick builds which reduce emissions and minimizes waste. ARCspace reports the buildings are “spec-built from the ground up in 40-60% less time and cost than traditional construction.” Residents can fully customize their tiny homes or even scale up to the size of traditional homes and have a huge range of interior design details to choose from including optional elements that provide off-grid power and water. Some homes feature self-contained atmospheric water generators called Hydropanels that are grid-independent and pull a few liters of drinking water out of the air each day.

Iniö has a rustic personality that’s interwoven with distinct modern touches like expansive floor-to-ceiling windows and a bright, unstained wooden interior. Iniö comes as a two-level, three-bedroom log house stationed behind lofty eaves that create plenty of overhang for the home’s wraparound patio. Merging the overhang with the home’s front facade, 20-foot, floor-to-ceiling windows dissolve the barrier between the interior living space and outdoor seasons. Noting the proximity of the outdoors via the home’s expansive windows, Elina, one of Iniö’s residents, says, “[The] windows on three sides of the living room make it feel as though you are outside—you can experience all four seasons very intimately.”

Bali-based architect Alexis Dornier has created small prefabricated homes on stilts called Stilt Studio. These homes can be set up and erected without causing any substantial damage to the surrounding landscape. Dornier says, “The reality here (in Bali) is that we often find leasehold plots with a limited amount of years. This situation calls for us to tread lightly through prefab ‘PropTech’ structures that could be packed up and re-erected someplace else.” He aims at building the homes from cross-laminated timber, hence making them environmentally friendly as well.

The Caterpillar is a 192-foot-long, 46-foot-wide modular residence designed and built from a Quonset hut that features a compact and inhabitable cube in the center of each unit for services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen. Following True North, the neighborhood’s first live-and-work communal space, the team of architects and developers hoped to merge that same sense of community into a single Quonset hut. Dividing the lengthy residential complex into eight units, each live-and-work space features 23-foot tall ceilings that are lined with clerestory windows and a ‘Jetsons’ style genesis chamber where residents can “transform from ‘just barely awake’ to ‘ready for action,’” as the architects describe.

This organically shaped structure is a multi-use development made while respecting the existing ecology as well as the history of farming and fishing in the area. The unique building is constructed with prefabricated sections that can be placed and added on in a horizontal or vertical direction. Each of the units, individually or placed together, forms a coral-like shape inspired by the local marine ecology. The lead architect of Carlo Calma Consultancy Inc. and client C Ideation envisioned the development to be community-focused, which they described as “farm leisure.” The self-sustaining group of clusters will rely on electricity produced from solar umbrella pods and passive design techniques such as natural ventilation.

Koto designed a modular and prefabricated cabin known as Work Space Cabin. The sculptural office features charred-wood walls, and slanted windows. Koto’s cabin is meant to break down the notion of what a typical office space is supposed to be. They’ve envisioned the cabin to be placed in a natural landscape, far away from the usual hustle bustle of the city. “We want to disrupt how we see the conventional work office and have created a truly inspiring space that enhances the landscape giving people privacy with direct access to nature,” said Koto founding partner Zoe Little.

Developed from the Danish word Hyggee, Hüga was conceptualized, designed, and built over a span of 24 months, during which Grandio’s team of designers were able to produce a 45 m2 residence with space for a bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining area. The final results are these hüga units that are built with reinforced concrete and designed for minimal maintenance as well as reducing your energy costs. These compact homes can withstand all climates and adverse conditions, including earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes. Hüga homes are also mobile and modular so much so that you can extend your house in plan in just one day. Weighing about 55-Tn, Hüga requires a team and machinery for transportation but can be placed according to the prospective resident’s preference.

Minima is a 215-square-foot (20-square-meter) prefab module designed to be a flexible structure to serve as a standalone tiny home or as an additional unit in the backyard that can be used as a home office or spacious guest house. It is constructed with CLT (cross-laminated timber) which is a sustainable material and cuts down on the carbon emissions that concrete produces. The modern micro-home is giving me major Japandi vibes!

Muji launched a prefabricated home called Yō no Ie. The single-storey home features a large outdoor deck, in an attempt to encourage and promote indoor-outdoor living. Also called The Plain House, the home is meant for rural environments, and would function as a great low-profile home in the suburbs of Japan. “Yō no Ie enables you to interact with gardens that are difficult to realise in such urban areas. You can buy it for the first time, at the end of your home after the children have settled, or as a villa. Yō no Ie should be a pleasant answer for a comfortable home.”, says Muji.

Named the Kvivik Igloo, the tiny, prefabricated houses perch the hilltops of Kvivik, overlooking the bay and surrounding mountains. Designed to look like tiny hobbit cottages, each Kvivik Igloo is built with a hexagonal frame and design elements meant to echo the past. Lined with asphalt panels, the Kvivik Igloos can sprout grass and greenery from their roofs and sides to really transport residents into their favorite hobbit fairytale. The igloo’s living roof not only adds to its charm but also to the tiny home’s sustainability factor, creating a heightened nesting place for birds and woodland creatures alike.

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