Modern Farmhouse

Modern farmhouse sounds like an oxymoron, but I've seen more than a few great looking modernist takes on the American homestead. One of my favorites is Farmhouse One, by the architecture firm of Durkee, Brown, Viveiros and Werenfels. It's a simple, traditionally inspired Rhode Island farmhouse with modern twists. Take a look.




And if you're in to modern farmhouses you'll also be pleased to know there's a great blog dedicated to the genre - the appropriately named Farmhouse Modern. It's definitely worth a look (I found it on the LiveModern Blog Directory, where Future House Now is also listed).

If you want to completely overdose on cool modern farmhouses, pick up the book Farm Houses: The New Style by Neill Heath. It features the houses I mentioned above, and many more, in 185 full color pages. Great book.



Image credits - Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels site, Amazon.com Listing

Bits 'n' Pieces

Just a couple of quick things:

The wonderful blog DO Research has closed shop - it is already missed. The upside is they've bought land and are building a Flatpak. I am wildly jealous!

Read the story behind the sea container Holyoke Cabin on the Hive Modular blog. So cool.

Skinny Japanese Houses on eye candy (via Things Magazine). Only in Japan [sigh].

The amazingly hip Alan Family Happy New House is complete. Check it out in The New York Times. It turned out just like the renderings - very, very cool. It shows you just how much you can do with a remodel.

I just picked up a good book, Small Eco-houses. Loaded with interesting, green, modern homes from all over the world. Two thumbs up!

image credit - Amazon.com listing

Tom Kundig's Sublime House - "The Brain"

On Saturday I was hanging around the architecture section of my local Barnes & Noble, looking for something new. I found a nice book on houses by Tom Kundig of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects. I also just caught this post on Shedworking covering several of the firm's brilliant cabin-like houses.

Tom Kundig: Houses

I resisted buying the book, though I'd really like to have it. It's very nice and Kundig's work is amazing. The house on the cover, Chicken Point Cabin, has been shown everywhere, and for good reason. It's pretty spectacular, and that giant, tilting window and the unusual mechanical folly for opening it are sublime.


Visiting the OSKA site, I found that the house I liked most wasn't one of the groovy cabins I'd spotted in a lot of the blogs and architecture mags. I was taken by the "The Brain," a fascinating concrete monolith built for a filmmaker.

"The form is essentially a cast-in-place concrete box, intended to be a strong yet neutral background that provides complete flexibility to adapt the space at will." - OSKA site

That's wonderful. I love the way the house rests on its site, half hidden, with creeping vines growing all over it. I hate big ugly garages hanging off the side of a house, parasitic, distorting proportions, so I was delighted to see this house with the garages tucked neatly underneath, buried into the slope of the landscape. No yard either - excellent!



The austere concrete exterior belies a more playful space inside: wonderful bookshelves (just look at 'em!), interesting lighting, a fireman's pole, and an amusing custom staircase.




Yes, this is a house I can see myself living in. The only exception I take with it, and with most Kundig houses frankly, is that they all look like bachelor pads. I'm married with children. But I think the wife and kids could adapt. Who wouldn't want to live in a house with a fireman's pole?

_____________________________________________________
Addendum:

I should have pointed out this very good Seattle Times article about "The Brain." I've realized since writing this post that "The Brain" is a garage/studio, not intended to be a residence. Thanks to those who left comments pointing that out. It is also worth noting that Kundig received an AIA award for "The Brain" in 2004.

Oh well, even though it's not technically a house I'm still very inspired by it!

Image credits - Amazon listing (book), OSKA Architects site

I Like Homes Where Books Live

Books are very important to me. I'm one of those people who would rather sit at home reading than go to a party. I get lost in stories, and read coffee table books over and over again, scanning pictures repeatedly to glean every last detail. Books are good friends. They deserve good homes.

The Maison de Verre in Paris (via NY Times via rolu|dsgn). This house is absolutely brilliant.

Image Credit - NY Times

The Upcher house by Bates Masi Architects (via DO Research). Beautiful.

Image Credit - Bates Masi Architects

Mill Valley Straw Bale Residence by Arkin Tilt Architects - the entire main inner wall is one great bookshelf and art gallery.

Image Credits - Arkin Tilt Architects

The Wall House by FAR - unusual triangular approach. Fascinating.

Image credit - FAR

The Hughes/Kinugawa House by Andrew Lister, with rare bookshelf/window intermingling. Note that some shleves can also be accessed from the second floor (if you have long arms).

Image Credit - Andrew Lister site

In my house there will be books. Lots of them. Message to architect - be ready.

Blog and Book About Place, Sprawl, Community Planning

I just found this interesting blog, Where - "a blog about urban places, place-making and the concept of 'place.'" It's relatively new. I saw a link to it on BLDGBLOG. It's good. As much as I write about houses, and the need for better housing in America, the real truth is it's a macro problem we're facing. We don't just need better houses, we need better places. We need smarter cities, we need to tackle sprawl, we need to be able to access our jobs and communities by something other than automobiles, we need green spaces where we live and shop, and we need vital cities where people can live comfortably with higher population densities so we don't have to keep tearing up forests, farmland and coastal beauty.




Today's post on Where is particularly interesting to me. It's about Detroit, and I think it gives a great insight on the unusual dynamics of this city, and why for change to happen Detroit has to follow its own unique path to revitalization. I really enjoyed reading it. This is a blog I'll be watching.

By the way, I've been wanting to post about a great book I picked up a while ago. A Field Guide to Sprawl by Dolores Hayden is a handbook to all that's gone wrong with American suburban development in the last sixty years.




You'll learn about and see aerial pics of "Zoomburbs," "Boomburbs," "Category Killers," LULUs," "Privatopias," "Ozoners," "Pods," "Edge Nodes," and more. I'd say I live in a combination "Low Density/Greenfield/Sitcom Suburb" (I hate to say that, but it's true). You won't have any problem recognizing the landscape depicted in this book all around you either, wherever you live in the USA. It's a fabulous and entertaining book with a critical message - planning the greater environment matters, and we're doing it all wrong.

Image credits - Where site and Amazon.com listing

Green Roofs in a Great Book - Sustainable Environments by Yenna Chan

I picked up another cool book today, Contemporary Design in Detail - Sustainable Environments, by Yenna Chan. It was just published in April, and it's really good.




Sustainable Environments is absolutely loaded with some of the coolest houses going, many of which I've talked about here in this blog, like: Steven Holl's Little Tesseract House, the ever-exciting C2C Home winner, and Shigeru Ban's Bamboo Furniture House. Other featured works are from noted firms like Arkin-Tilt, Pugh+Scarpa, ZEDFactory, and the good folks at Rural Studio.

One of the neatest things about the book is that roughly half the projects shown in it have green roofs. I love green roofs, I've already decided the home I build someday will have one, and I can't understand why on earth every new home shouldn't have one.

I like the green roof in the book done by Balmori Associates for the Solaire Building, a green residential tower in NYC which was chosen as an AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects. They have great pics of it on their site, as well as a short video that talks about all the benefits of green roofs, like helping to reduce the urban heat island effect, mitigating air pollution, absorbing stormwater and reducing runoff, and providing a green space for residents. There's another great video on the Solaire's green features here.





Green roofs rule! We need a green roof revolution in America!

Sustainable Environments is one boss book. Find it and read it.

Image credit - Rockport Publishers, AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects,

Prefab Modular "Option" from Bauart Architekten and WeberHaus

A couple weeks ago I finally bought the last of the Mini House books I didn't have - the first in the series actually (nothing like working backwards!). Great book, of course, and full of interesting homes. One in particular caught my eye, the "Option" house, sold in Europe by WeberHaus.

The Option is a modular prefab box originally designed by the Swiss firm Bauart Architekten, and called the Small House. And small it is, only 678 square feet. But it packs a lot of living in its two stories, thanks to its simple plan and clean, minimalist aesthetic. Take a look:






See what I mean? I really like it. Need more space? You're right, 678 square feet is pretty small. No problem. You can combine multiple Options to form a single structure. Some really interesting variants have been produced.

Like this one ...







... and this one.






Again, I must recommend reading the three Mini House books. They're excellent. The pics of the Option in the first book are great, and you'll see tons of other cool, small houses.

Image credits - WeberHaus

Go Underground with Architect Malcolm Wells

When I was in middle school my science teacher, Mr. O'Leary, showed the class a film about an underground house (this was back in the '80s, with the really bad projectors and everything). The movie was all about how underground houses are not cold, dark, or wet. Rather, they can be very inviting and very energy efficient. In retrospect, Mr. O'Leary was a pretty cool guy, and I think now he showed us that film because he wanted to live in an underground house. Can't blame him.

In college I came across the work of architect Malcolm Wells. If you want to learn about underground houses, run - do not walk, to your nearest library and find one of his books. Wells has been a genuine pioneer and his work in underground or earth sheltered building, and passive solar design has inspired so many people for many years. He's done a ton of great books, full of his brilliant designs and illustrations. I used to keep checking this one out of the Purdue library, over and over. My name must have been on the book card twenty times by the time I graduated (yeah, back then they didn't just scan the ISBN number into the computer, you signed a little card in a pocket in the book's back cover, for you youngsters who've never heard of such a crazy thing).




Wells has done several notable homes, most famous of which is probably this one on Cape Cod. Lovely, isn't it? Wells is a beautiful artist. His books are filled with his wonderful sketches. Very inspiring.




I like his vision. Change from the sad old spec house (like the one I live in right now) to something natural, beautiful, and efficient.




Wells is really one of the greats. As far as natural housing goes, don't miss out on his work. Check out his website, and go find some of his books. You'll really like them, and you'll learn a lot.

Image credits - Malcolm Wells' site

The Self Fab House - Amazing Architecture Competition

I just stumbled on a really amazing and impressive international architecture contest run by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. It's the Self Fab House competition, which invites design proposals for self-sufficient housing. This is the second running of the contest. Entries opened in April, close in September, and results will be announced by November of this year.

Take a look at the top projects from the first Self-Fab House competition. Stunning!!!!






And it looks like the first running of the competition spawned a book, which I am now officially dying to get my hands on.


Via Archidose (A Daily Dose of Architecture).

Image credits - Self Fab House Competition site

Lori Ryker's Excellent Off the Grid Books

I just picked up a copy of Lori Ryker's recent book, Off the Grid Homes: Case Studies for Sustainable Living. It's a follow up to the earlier book of the same theme, Off the Grid: Modern Homes + Alternative Energy, which I bought last summer and have really enjoyed. The new book is just as good, maybe even better.

Both texts take an in-depth look at a half dozen or so houses that all employ a variety of green strategies both in design/construction and power generation. You'll see examples of passive and active strategies, PV and wind power, solar hot water systems, rainwater catchment, graywater, geothermal, and natural cooling. Featured homes range from city, to suburbs, to rural locations. Some are big, some are small. They're all really nice homes. Very inspiring.





Ryker is an architect, and the latest book features her own home, the RN House or Outside/In House (pictured on the new book's cover). It's a green, off the grid marvel that lives very large for its modest 2,200 square feet. You can read a little about it at this post on treehugger, and you can see a slide show of the house on Outside Magazine's website.

Other architects' works featured include Pugh+Scarpa, Arkin-Tilt, and Lake/Flato. Color pictures throughout will make you drool, and keep you coming back to pull these books from your bookcase again and again.

The Off the Grid books are really great. You'll learn a lot about how truly green homes are built, and how varying strategies work together to compliment the site's location and characteristics, and the needs of the homeowners. Highly recommended for your green home library.

Image credits - Amazon.com listings

Inspiration from Detroit's Past - Frank Lloyd Wright's Cooperative Homesteads Project

Okay. Confession time. No, I am not from California, or Oregon, or New York City. I'm not a trendy design professional, I'm not an architect, I don't come from a family of builders. Guess what I do for a living. C'mon - guess! Here it is: I'm an autoworker, and I live in Detroit.

Now, Detroit is not the pit that most people from other parts of the country think it is. The city has had a lot of rough times, true, but actually it's an alright place to live (I really appreciated this article in Dwell about Detroit). The weather is really nice here too. Kind of wet, with cold winters, but we really don't get too much snow and summertime is a dream. Spring and fall are both lovely. Actually, I grew up close to Ann Arbor, which is pretty groovy. It's where all the hippies go to engineering school, at U of M, although I went to Purdue, but anyway.

So yeah, I'm an autoworker. I don't work "on the line" or anything, but I am in the biz. My company makes car parts (darn good ones too!). And I live in the burbs of Detroit. And even though I've forever dreamed of moving to California I will always have a soft spot for my hometown.

And that's one reason I've always been fascinated by a certain Frank Lloyd Wright project from the late thirties / early forties, planned for Detroit, but never built. It's the Cooperative Homesteads Project. Wright and his team from Taliesin designed it for a coop formed of auto workers and teachers - idealists, consistent with the times (unions, socialism, progressives, artists, etc.). It was intended to offer quality but low cost housing these people could afford, in a planned community where they could return home from their factory jobs and then tend their shared gardens in Detroit's long summer evenings, growing much of their own food.




The project, was an experiment that was way ahead of its time. Not so much the community planning aspect, which is so of the era it is kind of cliche, but rather in its construction and aesthetic.

First of all, the homes were going to have rammed earth walls. That's right, rammed earth walls. Wright was experimenting with it at the time, and was going to use it in the project as a low cost wall system the future homeowners could erect themselves. Second, Wright employed earth berming to help further protect the walls, provide extra insulation, and block cold winter winds. A broad roof was planned to further shelter the earthen walls from Detroit's damp weather, and keep out summer sun.

Inside, the house had small bedrooms, one large main living space, built-in furniture, and a great hearth. Natural light came in from windows on both sides, and there was a bank of nice big floor-to-ceiling windows in the main living area. There was an attached shed/cellar for storing tools and vegetables from the garden. The homes look extremely livable, despite their compact size.





Ultimately, World War II intervened, and the project was abandoned. A few units were actually started, but never finished (apparently the yet unprotected walls literally washed away from exposure). It is sad, because for a small worker's home the design was truly modern and beautiful. A simple, modest home, but really sleek. I've always thought it was one of the coolest designs Wright had done. It appeals to my populist streak, but with high style.

In his wonderful book, The Natural House, Wright mentions the project, and commented that "the nature of the scheme is apropos to so much of the building problem in our country that it is on record here for what it may be worth." Sadly, I think not much has changed, and so I present the project here as an interesting example of elegant, thoughtful, paradigm challenging, affordable housing concept that should continue to inspire us.

I think the project is also discussed in the great book on Wright's Usonian Houses written by John Sergeant.

You can read a nice writeup on the project at the website of Aaron G. Green Associates Inc. Mr. Green was a student of Wright and worked on the project. Click here to jump straight to the Cooperative Homesteads page.

Image credits - Aaron G. Green Associates, Inc. site

Cool Green Homes from Famed Architect Steven Holl

Today in Wired there's a great multimedia feature on famed architect Steven Holl. Holl does wonderful, forward-looking work and incorporates a lot of green elements in his designs. The Wired piece shows off ten of his projects (selected from Holl's new book). One of them is a cool house in Hawaii. The two L-shaped structures mimic shifting tectonic plates, a nod to the island's volcanic geology - very clever. I like the look, and the solar paneled roofs. Doesn't look like a bad place to live, now does it?




Here's another totally hip house from Holl's website - the Little Tesseract House in New York. It's a 1200 square foot addition to an existing, small stone house. The addition makes for great solar design with huge banks of south and east facing glass planks that absorb winter sun and release it back into the house at night. A small man-made pond next to the house is fed solely from rainwater collected by the roof, and in the summer it helps cool prevailing breezes flowing toward the house, which are scooped up by wide-opening windows. The house has a "chimney" design with openings on the upper floor to help ventilate warm air. A green roof of sedum tops off the addition, and PV panels on the roof of the original structure provide what little power the house needs.






This is one of the slickest houses I've seen. I like the green features and the funky look. Of course, it's actually Holl's own. His weekend house, in fact. Personally, I think it would make a fine full-time residence.

You can also see and read a lot more about the Little Tesseract House in the excellent book The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture.




Image credits - Wired, Steven Holl Architects site, Amazon.com listing

Living Large in the Compact 9tubohouse

It's so great when old ideas, once forgotten, are rediscovered and flourishing today. That's the case with the lovable Japanese 9tubohouse. Originally designed in in 1952 by Makoto Masuzawa as an "absolute minimum" house anyone could afford, the 9tubo has been revived of late by Makoto Koizumi and others, who are working to bring this compact darling to homeowners in Japan today.




The 9tubohouse is based on the traditional Japanese unit of measurement in building, the tubo. One tsubo is a square composed of two tatami mats arranged side by side. At nine tsubos (naturally) the plan is only 538 square feet inside. It's a small, but highly livable design, with its wall of windows, a compact but efficient kitchen, a tatami room, and a spacious loft. It's a very efficient design that lives a lot larger than its tiny footprint. The houses are easy to build too, utilizing simple and traditional post and beam construction.

I love the way the houses are finished. Very natural and modern. Here are pics of a few different 9tubohouses:




Most of the pics above are of the second 9tubohouse (the dark one - the first 9tubohouse is the very first pic at the top of the post). As you can see, there are lots of variations on the basic theme too - taller ones, wider ones, etc. - some of which I've shown. I really like the exterior treatment of the bottom one, and the matching detached studio.

Of course, the 9tubohouse site is all in Japanese, and so it's hard for me to navigate. But click around, there are lots of great images including many of people visiting 9tubohouses during an open house showing. There is an English page, but it is still being developed.

You can read about the 9tubohouse in the great book, Space: Japanese Design Solutions for Compact Living. It's one of my very favorite books, and it gives the 9tubohouse generous treatment, with over twenty pages on it and tons of very good pictures. The 9tubohouse is on the cover, which is appropriate, as it perfectly embodies the concept of the book.




By the way, is it "tubo" or "tsubo." I always see it written tsubo, like in the book Space, but I'm going with tubo since that is how the web address is written.

The Japanese concept of turning limitations into strengths is really at work here. The 9tubohouse works well, even for families, despite its tiny size. Everything you need is there, and nothing is wasted. Though small, it is bright and airy and never feels cramped. And it has so much personality, which is what every house should have. Beautiful!

Image credits - 9tubohouse site, Amazon.com listing

Great Book: Redux - Designs That Reuse, Recycle and Reveal

A key element of green building is reuse or recycling of materials that are already converted. Salvaging materials otherwise destined for the dump can help you save money and reduce the total embodied energy of your home. And it's usually a very opportunistic sort of thing, which ultimately gives each project its own unique character.

That's exactly the point of a fantastic book by Jennifer Roberts: Redux - Designs That Reuse, Recycle and Reveal. I like that a lot, but it's the "reveal" part that I like best. The book gives readers one example after another of eco-hip homes bursting with personality as well as environmentally friendly design and construction.


Redux's three main sections cover Renovation, Adaptation and New Construction. For every project featured there is a specific rundown of what reclaimed materials were employed, a "reuse recap," as well as a list of other green features. Scattered throughout Redux's 160 pages you'll also find little sidebars called the "Inside Scoop" which include real gems of wisdom including, among others, "tips for buying salvaged wood," "old stuff to be wary of," and "tax deduction for deconstruction." The many, many color pictures throughout the book are guaranteed to inspire.

Two firms that feature prominently in the book are Leger Wanaselja Architecture and Arkin/Tilt Architects. Both are masters of green design and make substantial use of reclaimed materials in the homes they do. In fact, I think it's safe to say they've taken it to a high art form, and the result is distinct styles that cannot be mistaken for the work of anyone else.

Here's just a couple examples of the works of each that are featured in the book:

The Dwight Way project in Berkeley by Leger Wanaselja is a remodel/addition urban infill project that features nine housing units. Besides adapting a rundown site on a brownfield property, the architects used old car parts, old street signs, salvaged wood and high recycled content in countertops, insulation, and concrete. Some of that reuse is subtle, but some of it is right in front of you. Not subtle, but not in your face. It looks great. All I can say is that this is one of the coolest places I've ever seen and that I'd move in there in a heartbeat just from seeing the pictures.




Arkin/Tilt's D'Souza / De La Torre Residence is a new construction suburban family residence. You simply cannot look anywhere in this house without spotting recycled materials, though everything looks completely appropriate and tasteful. Wall and bookshelf framing is reclaimed wood. Trusses are from salvaged beams. Old vinegar barrels were deployed as ceiling decking. The garage doors were taken from an old elementary school. The roof shingles are made of recycled tire rubber. Kitchen counters are made from recycled glass. The house also uses solar electricity from grid-intertied PV panels, a most excellent geothermal system, and a unique staircase / cooling tower for natural ventilation. It's also modestly sized at 1823 square feet. Perfect! This is what suburban homes should all be like!




Other great homes featured in the book include OMD's amazing Seatrain House, Locus Architecture's groovy nowhaus 01, and many more.

Redux is a fabulous book. It's definitely in my top three favorites and I simply cannot recommend it highly enough. Pick up a copy. You will not be disappointed.

Image Credits - Amazon.com listing, Leger Wanaselja site, Arkin/Tilt Site

Tezuka Architects Roof House

I've fallen in love with the simple, uniquely clever style of homes by Japan's Tezuka Architects. The tiny Engawa House is in my top five all time favorites. Here's another great one: the Roof House.

Every family has some unique requirement for their home. The family that commissioned the Roof House liked to sit out on their roof and eat lunch. That's what they wanted, literally, a house with a big roof deck. And why not? The site of their new home is on a beautiful hillside overlooking a small, pleasant valley. If you have a view like that why waste it?




The Tezukas delivered a home with a gently sloping roof that parallels the terrain of the site. The space is fully equipped for family living. It has an outdoor kitchen and dining table, a stove, and believe it or not, a shower. From the pictures I've seen it is not enclosed or sheltered from the neighbors' windows. Now, I know Japanese sensibilities are a little different from Americans', but I think I'd take my shower in the inside bath. Nevertheless, I love it when a home challenges convention, and this one surely does. And issues of culture and modesty aside, I'm sure anyone can enjoy lunch in the sunshine, taking in the panorama below. There's a small wall section to help shelter diners from the prevailing breezes. It looks extremely pleasant up there.




Now, I have small children, and I'm not sure I'd be totally comfortable with them playing on an open roof with no kind of rail. But again I'm inclined to ignore that in favor of appreciating the creativity of the space.

Inside there are skylights everywhere - eight of them - and lots of ladders to take you up to the roof (there's even one in the inside bathroom). Thought the family prefers lounging on the roof the inside space is great too. In typical Japanese fashion it has a small but effective kitchen, a nice open living space (minimally furnished), a small bedroom for parents and another for children, a small office, and a single bath. Simple sliding doors divide the rooms where necessary.




It looks like a really comfortable and livable family home. Very open and bright. Very relaxed.

Visit the Tezuka site for more photos of the house, or pick up the book Small Houses- Edition 2007 by Carles Broto. The book features both the Roof House and the Engawa House, as well as many other fine examples of compact homes.

Image credits - Tezuka Architects site

BLDGBLOG: The Book

The ever fascinating site BLDGBLOG has a book coming. Personally, I cannot wait for it!


I you've been living under a rock and haven't visited BLDGBLOG yet please do so NOW! It is a truly cool site. I think you'll enjoy it. A real gem of the Web.

Image credit - BLDGBLOG site

Interesting Book - Little House on a Small Planet

Here's a book that's right up my alley - Little House on a Small Planet by Shay Salomon/photography by Nigel Valdez. Sounds great! If you've been reading Future House Now you know my penchant for smaller homes that live large through smart design, and that you can really afford. That's just what this book promises - "Discover how to build, remodel, redecorate, or profoundly rethink your needs," and "Improve your life by scaling back, painlessly, joyfully, and deliciously." It looks really good, and I'll be picking up a copy. I'll let you know how it is after I read it.

Little House on a Small Planet

Modulome House by nottoscale architecture + interior design

A little while back I did a post on a favorite book of mine, The Home House Project, which chronicles the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's competition aimed at drawing out great home designs that also address issues of affordability and sustainability. Page after page features fresh and funky houses that make you rethink all your old ideas about what a house should be, and leaves you feeling that a great house really can be had on a reasonable budget.


Of the many great houses in the book, one of my favorites was the VW House, a modular prefab concept by nottoscale architecture + interior design. It's a great looking, design - clean and hip. Very modern is now. I loved it right away.



Style aside, the best part of the house is its concept. The VW House evolved into notoscale's Modulome prefab system. You may remember how in a recent post I was ranting about why can't we have a modular prefab system that lets us adapt and change it as our families grow, letting us build what we need, when we need it, adding on more modules as required and as our budgets allow. Well, that's what the Modulome system is meant to be. Prefab 16x48x10 ft. units can be bolted together, stacked and skewed, in just about whatever configuration you can dream up. You can build what you need, and add extra modules later when you require more space. And much like the way a car is built, the basic structure of a Modulome is a "chassis", upon which interior components can be arranged to meet each client's individual needs. Interiors can be configured with the same kind of creative variety as the overall exterior structure. Inside and out, Modulome's vision is to give you, the owner, what you want, while still take advantage of the benefits of prefab.


I just think that's great. Prefab has great promise, for the reasons we've all seen and heard before - quality, speed, cost, etc. But I also love the way nottoscale is showing us how prefab units can also be employed creatively to deliver unique and inspiring designs. Too cool!

Modulome is still in the development stages. But guess what, the first prototype house is being built this year. The Rondolino House will be erected on 40 acres of Nevada desert between the mountains and Death Valley. With a limited budget and a remote site, prefab was an obvious solution. The house is also being constructed to accommodate off-the-grid living and take advantage of passive solar heating and natural cooling techniques.

It's a great-looking house. Take a look at these images that nottoscale very generously provided me with so I could share them with you:




I really like the outdoor living spaces and the day lighting. It's a sleek and modern design - elegant in its simplicity. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished home later this year. The Modulome has great promise, and I am sure we will see more of these sharp houses in the future.

Image credits - nottoscale architecture + interior design

The Development of American Housing - Slate.com Book Excerpts from Last Harvest

Over the last few days the online magazine, Slate.com, has been running a great series of excerpts from the new book The Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville by Witold Rybczynski.



The book, and the excerpts chosen by Slate, explain how we have come to the state of American housing as it exists today. The three excerpts are titled:

1. Why Do We Live In Houses, Anyway - A Brief History of the Home
   
2. The Ranch House Anomaly - How Americans Fell In and Out of Love With Them
3. How a Cornfield Became New Daleville - Building a Town from Scratch

This last excerpt is actually a slideshow. All three pieces are informative and fascinating, and tell the story of American housing and its evolution into the mess it is today, and the negative impact that has on the quality of American life (my editorial condemnation, not Slate's or necessarily the book's). I highly recommend the excerpts, and I'm curious to read the whole book.

Hopefully the new interest in better family homes, green and often modern, as well as better community planning, will grow into something larger and help turn things around.

See the link to the Amazon listing for Last Harvest in my sidebar.

Image credit - Amazon.com listing

SECCA's Home House Project

This past weekend I picked up a book on The Home House Project, which chronicles the top entries to the Southeastern Center