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Entries
tagged as 'Alchemy Architects'
Alchemy Architects recently posted links to pictures of their 19th and 20th weeHouse prefabs being set. There are 32 pictures of each house: Alchemy Architects recently posted the real estate listing of a weeHouse in Siren, WI. This model has been on display since May 2009, according to an earlier entry. size: 324 sf
br: studio
price: $48,000
available: yes
Note:
Worth a look: the listing includes 7 more pictures. Alchemy Architects recently posted the real estate listing of a weeHouse in the Northwoods of Minnesota. size: 840 sf
br: 2
bath: 1.75
price: $280,000
available: yes
Worth a look: the listing includes 16 more pictures. Alchemy Architects recently mentioned that weeHouse is covered in the inflight magazine for Continental Airlines this month. We looked around and found the link: Title: The Next Little Thing
Subtitle: As the era of McMansions fades, wee houses promote simpler,
more efficient living
Author: Joe Bargmann
Publication: The inflight magazine for Continental Airlines
Section: The Idea of the Moment
Length: 1,235 words
Date: June 2009
We received an email this week from Alchemy Architects announcing their weeHouse Open House today and this weekend. title: Saturn weeHouse Open House
host: Heart of North, LLC
where: Siren, WI
location: 24729 Highway 35/70, Siren, WI 54872 on the west frontage road just north of Siren and south of Highway 70 East
date: May 22 - 24, 2009
time: 10:00am - 4:00pm
cost: Free!
notes: Also by appointment
contact: Phone: (715) 349-8800 or email: info@honhomes.com
Model details: Earlier this month, Contemporist shared pictures of the newly finished Johnson Creek weeHouse in PA. Original source: Alchemy blog model: Johnson Creek weeHouse
designer: Alchemy Architects
construction method: modules
size: 2,200 sf
br: 3
Designer: Alchemy Architects. Via email from Alchemy Architects, we learned about 3 upcoming open houses for the weeHouse. Saturday, October 11, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
As these two homes are private residences, please RSVP and get specific directions by emailing Betsy Gabler: betsy@weehouses.com. The third open house is public: Thursday, October 16 - Thursday, October 30, 2008
A recent email from Alchemy Architects says:
Old pricing was in the $150/SF range, so it's quite a drop. Actual pricing depends on your part of the country. Also mentioned:
Higher capacity solar kits are available for larger homes. For details: FusionModular.com. Alchemy Architects has had a blog for a while, but just recently, Alchemy's Betsy Gabler has been updating frequently with information on the weeHouse. One post covered a not-so-weeHouse in PA:
The Alchemy Architects website provides a description of the home (seen above) and additional images:
A post from last week profiled a weeHouse in upstate New York:
We're still waiting for the Build a wee page to become active. Hopefully we'll see that announced on the blog soon! Also: there's a weeHouse page, updated frequently, on Facebook. You have to be a friend to see the profile, but you can find it through a search. From the mailbox:
The two 4x models join eight existing weeHouse models from Alchemy Architects, and represent the largest weeHouses yet to be introduced. Some background on the designs:
The two options:
Also worth mentioning: basic weeHouse pricing for any region in the country is now available. Kudos to the weeHouse folks for making that information so accessible! model: 2x4 weeHouse
designer: Alchemy Architects
price: from $319,000 (~$150/sf)
size: 2,150 sf
br: 3
style: modern
how: complete modules
model: 4x4 weeHouse
designer: Alchemy Architects
price: from $319,000 (~$150/sf)
size: 2,090 sf
br: 3
style: modern
how: complete modules
Banks.com loves weeHouses and the new weeHouse site: I like weeHouses for three reasons: The Good Human's Prefab Wednesday covered an Australian prefab home, called The Mod House from Prebuilt. We'll look at that company in more detail soon. Inhabitat's Prefab Friday got excited about a gingerbread version of the mkLotus: The only thing better than beautifully designed green prefab is edible green prefab! One of our favorite green architects Michelle Kauffman, in honor of the holiday season, has designed a yummy version of her awesome zero energy mkLotus, made entirely from gingerbread cookies... Treehugger, Curbed San Francisco, and re-nest also enjoyed the holiday version of prefab. From the mailbox: We like to think of weeHouses as being Good+Cheap+Fast, and, along those lines, we hope you'll find our new Web site Good+Helpful+Fast. After several months of painstaking discussion and analysis, followed by several more of crying, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, we feel like we've come up with a site that successfully conveys massive amounts of information, while showcasing our office's playful, creative nature. We really hope you like it! Visit us at www.weehouse.com to check out our new line of standard weeHouses, complete with plans, pricing, and superFancy interactive graphics, or to browse our top-notch custom architectural projects. There's lots of great new stuff to see, do, and learn. The new site features 360 degree views of all of their prefab models and detailed pricing, based on the region of the country you live in. Coming soon: the ability to build and price your custom weeHouse. Jetson Green is a fan: I love it because you can see houses they've built, projects in planning....If you're looking to get a home, you want to go with a company that's actually built something. From the mailbox: Alchemy welcomes you to visit the newest not-so-weeHouse during their Holiday Open House. This 4 bedroom, 4 bath, 4-box weeHouse is located in Linden Hills [Minneapolis] on a mature, wooded city lot and contains many standard and custom weeHouse elements. Materialicio.us says: A terrific example of green prefab architecture. Where: 4221 Ewing Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN
When: December 14, 2007, from 4-7 PM
CubeMe discussed the Bombala house, an offering from Modern Modular. Curbed LA wrote about the first weeHouse in Los Angeles: ...a three-unit weeHouse (yes, that's how it's spelled) development for Valevista Trail. A family is planning to build the development, which is currently in the permit phase, and sell the homes... Spanish-language blog Cien Ladrillos wrote a long post about prefabs in Spain. Inhabitat's Prefab Friday and The Good Human's Prefab Wednesday both covered the mkLoft from Michelle Kaufmann Designs. We'll discuss that in more detail soon. Jetson Green looked at a new container project in Panama City, Panama. I happened upon a new blog called Prefab Dweller, which looks to cover "modern prefab housing, modern architecture, and green housing." Recent posts include one about Alchemy Architects' weeHouse. The Dwell on Design conference is this weekend in San Francisco. We won't be there, but here's who will: We heard from Alchemy Architects: "Alchemy Architects will be at Dwell on Design 2007 with a weeHouse to 'tour'. Amazing, but we had a CA client who's weeHouse is just being finished...so it'll stop in San Fran on its way to San Diego. It's a very exciting opportunity for people who are interested in a weeHouse to see a weeHouse. We'll be in the outdoor, prefab section." We know these vendors won't be attending: Some prefab-specific events that will be worth checking out: what: Dwell on Design conference
where: Concourse Exhibition Center, San Francisco, CA
when: September 14-16, 2007
sponsor: Dwell Magazine
registration: $20 for Exhibition Only pass, September 15-16. $895 for full conference and exhibition passport.
features: over 80 exhibitors and vendors
The Good Human's Prefab Wednesday covered the weeHouse from Alchemy Architects: "A two bedroom prefab for $109,000? Sounds interesting. Except for the foundation, fitting and seaming of the house after arrival, and utility hookups, these weeHouses from Alchemy Architects come ready to live in. Very cool!" Luba's San Francisco Real Estate Blog is looking forward to for the upcoming Dwell on Design show: "Woo Hoo! This is the first year that I'll be attending the Dwell on Design Conference and Exhibition! And I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am!" Inhabitat also shared their thoughts on the show and recapped their coverage from last year. Inhabitat's Prefab Friday discussed the microSYSTEM homes this week; we'll take a closer look at those soon. One year ago, Kiplinger's Personal Finance featured an article on Fabulous Prefabs. The article details homeowners Scott and Lisa McGlasson's decision to purchase an Alchemy Architects' weeHouse as a summer home for a lot they own in Minnesota: "The couple wanted to keep a lid on building costs, but they did not want to sacrifice great design and solid construction. They met both goals with a two-story modern built by Alchemy Architects, in St. Paul. 'During the day we have a lake view from 8-foot windows,' says Scott. 'But when we close the curtains at night, the living room is chic enough to feel like a New York City apartment.'
The article also outlines some key differences between panelized and modular construction:
The McGlassons' hideaway -- with two bedrooms, one bathroom and tons of personality -- is a prefabricated home. The components were assembled in a factory, trucked to their lot and put together.... Scott and Lisa paid $95,000 for their second home. They chose the layout of the first story from a half-dozen of Alchemy Architects' plans and added a second story to the blueprints, expanding the size to 780 square feet. The firm hired a Wisconsin factory to manufacture the house's components, a process that took about six weeks. The components were trucked from the factory on a flatbed, and a crane helped assemble them (delivery and crane costs ran $6,000). The McGlassons hired contractors to connect the house's wiring to the electrical grid, dig a well and do other finishing work. The final tally was about $160,000, including fixtures and appliances." "Panelized houses are made of sections stuffed with wiring and insulation. The panels are trucked to your lot, where contractors hired by you (or less commonly, by the prefab firm) join them together. Panelized houses tend to cost more than modular ones. But because the panels can be arranged in different ways, panelized houses can have custom options....
Kiplinger's included a slideshow that covers several companies we've covered here:The flexibility of a panelized house makes it superior for building on mountain, beach and lakefront locations, which tend to have more quirks than the typical suburban lot.... The major limitation of modular houses is size: Modular units must be able to travel down highways. 'We have to do a lot of thinking within the box,' jokes Joseph Tanney, a partner at Resolution: 4 Architecture, a New York firm that builds prefab homes using modular and other methods. What's more, modular houses often need thicker-than-usual interior walls to ensure that they will withstand the stress of being lifted onto your lot by a crane. (Panelized homes don't face this problem.) These thicker walls reduce the number of floor plans because there are only so many ways the fatter walls can be disguised." • Empyrean • Alchemy Architects • OMD • CleverHomes • Lazor Office • EcoSteel (aka EcoContempo) • Taalman Koch • Resolution: 4 Architecture • MKD • Rocio Romero. Title: Fabulous Prefabs
Author: Sean O-Neill
Publication: Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Length: 1,500 words
Date: July, 2006
The Some Assembly Required exhibit by the Walker Art Center will be opening at the Virginia Center for Architecture on June 15. (Hat tip: a post on Richmond Magazine's blog). Tour locations to date: Vancouver Art Gallery Yale School of Architecture The Museum of Contemporary Art, Pacific Design Center what: Some Assembly Required Exhibit
when: June 15 - September 30, 2007
who: Black Barn by Pinc House, Desert House by Marmol Radziner, FlatPak by Lazor Office, LV Series Homes by Rocio Romero, Mountain Retreat by Resolution 4: Architecture, Sunset Breezehouse by Michelle Kaufmann Designs, Turbulence House by Stephen Holl, and the weeHouse by Alchemy Architects
Back in February, the New York Times published "Think Small", a story all about small second homes: "A wave of interest in such small dwellings — some to serve, like the Shepherds' home, as temporary housing, others to become space-saving dwellings of a more permanent nature — has prompted designers and manufacturers to offer building plans, kits and factory-built houses to the growing number of small-thinking second-home shoppers. Seldom measuring much more than 500 square feet, the buildings offer sharp contrasts to the rambling houses that are commonplace as second homes." The article featured a number of prefab models, including the weeHouse by Alchemy Architects: "For $90,000...Scott McGlasson...and his wife, Lisa...bought a 700-square-foot weeHouse....It has plumbing, tall glass doors, Andersen windows, laminate flooring, recessed lighting and Ikea cabinets. It is comfortable and attractive. 'But people confuse prefab with inexpensive,' Mr. McGlasson said. 'On a middle-class budget, this was doable, but not easy.' They bought the land — a small lot on Lake Pequaywan in northern Minnesota — in 2002 for $80,000. It already had a septic system, a well and access to utilities.
There have been a number of blog posts about, or inspired by, the article since then. Trend Agitator added some commentary:
One rectangular module serves as the main floor; above it is an additional square module that serves as a second bedroom, which must be entered from outdoors via a ship's ladder. Guests love it because it's separate from the rest of the house. 'And because they can lock out our three kids,' Mr. McGlasson said." "Luxurious small dwellings are the next wave. Defined as less than 700 sq ft, these dwellings are increasingly more aesthetic and available thru prefab manufacturers. As consumers rethink their priorities, these abbreviated structures motivate occupants to edit precisely and define themselves against the open space of the land rather than the footprint of the shelter." Treehugger criticized the fact that most of the homes discussed in the article are used as second, or vacation, homes: "Unfortunately, many of the homes profiled in the article are second or vacation homes, further stigmatizing the small footprint prefab as something that can only be used for a period of weeks, not the whole year." Inhabitat shared similar thoughts: "Some of those who have found themselves comfortable in these tiny houses have purchased them as second homes, which we find a bit ironic. The romantic notion of a large vacation plot of land, barely flecked with a 10' x 8' footprint is nice, but probably not exactly what Small House Society represents. Do you really get credit for adjusting your lifestyle for the sake of a small house — if you own two?" Blogs were covering the article as late as last week. Alt^House, a blog covering "news and information on non-traditional home options", covered a guy who lives in a tiny house: "Most of us think of a 500 square foot apartment as pretty darned small, but what would you say to living a house where the entire area measures only 96 square feet?" The Some Assembly Required show organized earlier this year by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, is now on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Pacific Design Center in LA: "...the exhibition features eight modern modular house projects that have recently been realized. The designs address a range of approaches to prefabrication, including off-site construction, customized sections that are assembled on-site, and kits with plans and parts from which a house can be constructed." Ecorazzi says "...you can see scale models of prefab homes, pictures, and samples of materials. Architects Marmol Radziner Prefab, Lazor, and Alchemy Architects are showcased..." On Blogcritics, LX.TV files a video report about the show, featuring an interview with Leo Marmol of Marmol Radziner. what: Some Assembly Required Exhibit
where: MOCA at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles
when: February 28 - May 20, 2007
A new blog called BLUEPRINT New Orleans explores the future of the city's design and culture. Here, Brad Brooks, talks about "prefab's promise" and the Dwell conference: "While putting together an initial package of videos about new architectural trends in New Orleans, one of the more promising topics of interest was prefab..." The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story on a prefab home in the area being built from parts from Austria: "...what ultimately led Pierce and his wife, Peggy, to bring the Thoma Holz100 system to Walnut Creek was the environmental sensibility of using sustainable wood -- in this case, fast- and easy-growing European larch -- in a way that requires no glues, finishes or other chemicals. Various sizes of lumber are layered vertically, horizontally and diagonally to form the solid panels. Then dried wooden dowels are strategically pressed through drilled holes...and expand inside the panels to secure the structure." Inhabitat's Prefab Friday covers David Adjaye's prefab home in the UK. Cubeme has some thoughts and great pictures of OMD's Seatrain, a house in LA: "In keeping with the artistic spirit of the community in which this house is being built, the project has been a collaborative experiment between the client, Richard Carlson, and the fabricators using a design/build approach where creative and structural decisions were made as the house was being constructed." Treehugger talks about an aluminum framing system mentioned on Mocoloco mid-last year. Future House Now covers Alchemy Architect's weeHouse: "You know, there are some houses that just make you feel good when you see them. I always see fun in the "weeHouse" designs from Alchemy Architects. I can't believe I haven't done a post on them before. [Their] houses have such a cool vibe." And so does a blog called Design Mind: "These days the Weehouse is not so wee, but it started out as the little abode you see here. It was in production in the US early in the prefab boom and now has many design options for a full home. But it's this first model that I still love." The Alchemy Architects were quite zany, with matching blue jumpsuits. A Warholized image of the first weeHouse graced the Alchemy booth (seen above). They didn't take themselves too seriously, but are showing serious results. A couple dozen projects are complete or under way. kitHAUS brought in a full-size K3 structure and used that as its booth. Visitor's were able to see and touch the product (as opposed to trying to decipher bad photos or floorplans or blocks of wood that were supposed to represent modules). Their structural framing/clamping system (MHS) is really as cool as it sounds. One satellite prefabber, the man at the helm of Modern Shed, shared details about his hands-on process. His offerings started with a humble shed a couple years back. That shed is now joined by a small studio and, soon, larger prefab dwellings. He and a partner have a number of built studios on the west coast, all of which they have personally delivered and installed. As noted in my earlier post, CA Boom required exhibitors in the Prefab Zone to have built a dwelling. Modern Shed didn't qualify this year (they only have the sheds and simple studios built), but is hoping for next. In any case, I was glad to learn about his refreshing approach and product line among the regular exhibits. Overall, the vendors had some great information to share, and people were VERY interested. It was difficult to get a word with some of the reps! Topics that came up in discussions with company reps: the regional availability of models and factory locations; permitting issues and process; custom designed models; and site issues. More on those soon! what: exhibitors at CA Boom
when: last weekend
In the weeHouse, Alchemy Architects provide a model to follow for prefab. It seems fitting that it should be the first home we cover from CA Boom 4. With just a small number of configuration and appearance options, and a fabrication process that includes all finishes, you really are getting a 'prefab' home. It might not be that custom home you've been thinking about since first grade, but a first grader could probably handle the ordering of this puppy. The weeHouse features studio, one and two bedroom options, with the ability to customize and build a much larger home. The standard options range in price from $70,000 for a 300sf studio to $110,000 for a 650sf two bedroom. These prices don't include bringing the utility hookups to the site or the home's foundation; homeowners and their contractor are responsible for this on-site work. Standard finish and fixture options include Ikea cabinetry and fixtures, and, for a price, the more high-end Duravit sinks, toilets, and tubs. The 12' modules are built in the factory and trucked to your (future) doorstep. Hire a crane (at ~$250/hr - $500/hr) to position the structure on your foundation, hook up the utilities and you are ready to go! It doesn't get much easier than that. This method is one that other prefabs really should aspire to. Alchemy Architects offer a number of custom options too, ranging from the ability to design "not too wee" houses or even to site-build a weeHouse. style: modern
price: $69,500 - $109,500 for standard models
size: 300sf - 700sf for the standard models
br: studio - 2 bedrooms
how: complete modules shipped to site, placed with crane
timeline: construction stated as 4-12 weeks
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