Prefab | Jeremy Scheller

Jul 7, 2010

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This Week in Prefab: Lamboo Bamboo

I love this nifty eco office previewed over at Inhabitat.

The Lamboo Solar Studio is a Curvy Eco Home Built from Bamboo

Oct 9, 2009

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Solar Decathlon: Great Impact with Less Impact.

Every two years, 20 architecture, design and building teams descend on the Mall in Washington DC to display new concepts of solar-powered homes in the Solar Decathlon sponsored by the US Department of Energy.

The purpose of the event is really to raise awareness and to raise the bar of inspiration and innovation around building Zero Energy Homes. No matter where you land on the issues regarding climate change, from a truly pragmatic perspective, I think there are a number of things we can all agree on:

Getting energy from completely natural sources is a good thing. The cost of the wind and the sun is free. Harnessing its power is the only expense to figure out.
Fossil fuels are dirty. Visit Los Angeles and notice the brown haze that sits on the horizon or try to see farther than a mile or two in Linfin, China. The damage is from fossil fuels plain and simple and it’s just not that pretty to look at.
As the world gets more polluted, any good capitalist can see a huge market for greener technology. The green economy will be the building blocks of the economy over the next half century as fossil fuels dry up and governments mandate energy sources that rely on electricity from increasingly natural sources.

So check out some of the great buildings than are having a huge impact by having less impact.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solar_decathlon/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Great coverage of the individual homes and the whole contest over at inhabitat.

May 4, 2009

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This Week in Prefab: iHouse

Prefab, Affordable?
The promise of eco-friendly modern prefab housing is also it’s current downfall: low prices. In order to lower the price, you need to ramp up production. Classic issue of supply and demand capitalism.

A new player in the market.
In walks Warren Buffet and his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway…One of their companies is called Clayton House and they launched a much anticipated Eco-friendly Prefab model called the iHouse, intended to be affordable and accessible as a modern dwelling place.

Personalize it.
I went to the website and configured my own model which included a 2 Bedroom, 1 bath main living quarters with a sun porch that connects to the flexspace that adds a large multi-purpose room, a smaller flex room and another bathroom. I included two solar powered options, a few kitchen and bath upgrades, and priced out a fully modern, small footprint home for $185,000 delivered right to my very own empty lot.

A step in the right direction.
This is a great new option in the prefab world. Hopefully, with the backing of one of the best business minds around, they can start selling these things and lend a boost to the entire prefab market. I think they need to get the price down another 25-30% in order to truly make these things accessible for the average family.

Images from the recent Popular Mechanics article.

Mar 20, 2009

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This week in Prefab: Place Houses via Inhabitat.com

I love this house and I can’t believe it’s a prefab.
Maybe it’s just the chartreusie pea green set in the foggy Pacific Northwest, but I think the angles, color, and contrasting materials make this prefab model especially tasty to the eyes.

Read the article over at Inhabitat.com or
Check out the Place Houses website.

Feb 20, 2009

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This Week in Prefab: Mod.Fab

modfab Mod.Fab is a collaborative project of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture students.

This potentially Gridless prefab follows the visual tradition of Wrights’ Prairie-style, while being quite at home in the desert. Well-designed and worth appreciating.

Feb 6, 2009

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Stable Modernism.

Just saw this post on Inhabitat this morning. Had to repost….

This is such a beautiful rehab. It ain’t prefab, but still strikes my fancy.

Few pics, then click over and check out the whole kit and kaboodle.

dairyfarmslats

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="537" caption="Dairy farm Slats"]

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Jan 26, 2009

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This week in Prefab: Cottage in a Day.

Inhabitat recently featured this in their Prefab Friday blog. It’s hot. I love it. Check it out.

Cottage in a Day.

Nov 10, 2008

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This week in Prefab: PieceHomes

I’d like to wrap myself up in the Wrap Tower by PieceHomes.

If I lived about 4 blocks from where I do now, I’d like to build this on a street with a view of the woods. I’d live all modern-like, buying all my furniture from Ikea, Design Within Reach, Crate and Barrel and West Elm.

However, in the real world, I’m broke, live 4 blocks east in the hood and buy nothing.

It’s fun to dream though.

Oct 6, 2008

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This week in Prefab: Modular Dwellings

Edgar Blazona is a San Francisco based-product designer with a truly prefabulous side project.

He designs things that are modern.
Clean.
Simple.
Cost-Effectively.

Everything that modern prefab should be.

Essentially, his line of modern prefab dwellings (modulardwellings.com) are boxes. The boxes start from the simplest 2×4 frames to more polished versions of steel and glass.

Buy one. Snap it together in a few days in your back yard.

I would love to have a version of the MD144. Essentially a 12×12 room with a wall of glass. It would make the perfect backyard bungalow guest room.