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The world of prefab and modular homes. |
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| Lumenhaus |
Here's another U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon contestant building with prefab components.
The house will be on display next month at the National Mall in Washington, DC.
According to the Lumenhaus site:
The modular design means the whole house itself is also flexible. Multiple units can be connected or stacked with plug-in stairs and entryways to create two-, three- or four- bedroom houses to adapt to the owners’ changing life circumstances.
Worth a look:
a video (9:41) documenting the process
Team Virginia Tech's blog
a Team News page on the Solar Decathlon site which aggregates all of the team blogs into one channel
Interesting to note: Virginia Tech is the only U.S. team to also compete in Solar Decathlon Europe in 2010.
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The Los Angeles Times recently covered a prefab house being built by students from Santa Clara University and California College of the Arts.
According to a video (5:48) on their site, the house is constructed from 3 modules arranged in a u-shape.
Refract House will be on display this October at the National Mall in Washington, DC as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon.
The Solar Decathlon joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house.
For more info on the project, see:
- documentary (6:54)
- blog
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| http://www.lifecyclebuilding.org/ |
The winners of the second annual Lifecycle Building Challenge (LBC2 or LBC 2008) were announced recently. About the challenge:
Lifecycle building is designing buildings to facilitate disassembly and material reuse to minimize waste, energy consumption, and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Also known as design for disassembly and design for deconstruction, lifecycle building describes the idea of creating buildings that are stocks of resources for future buildings.
Given those goals, it's no surprise that the three winners in the Building category are prefab:
TriPod by Carnegie Mellon University
TriPod is a prototype house demonstrating the "Plug and Play" concept and is designed to provide an innovative alternative to the currently unimaginative housing industry. ... [A] mechanical "core" ... acts as a motherboard that is able [to] accept multiple "pods" that are living, cooking, and sleeping spaces. This modular design allows homeowners to change their homes by adding or subtracting pods to suit their needs over time.
The Workshop by Schemata Workshop
There are two units in the building — in the first iteration the first story is an office; the second is an apartment. The building is elevated on concrete piers and cantilevers over an existing structure on-site
Loblolly House by KieranTimberlake Associates.
(See our previous coverage of Loblolly House.)
The challenge is sponsored by West Coast Green, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Building Materials Reuse Association, American Institute of Architects and Southface.
(Hat Tip: Jetson Green on October 29, 2008)
