Design & Architecture

Images from Platoon via Archdaily

I have always been a bit dubious about shipping containers as architectural elements; my dad used to make them and I grew up around them, and thought that the dimensions were all wrong for people; there was not much that you could do in a 7'-6" interior (or so I thought). Also, they are monocoque construction; the walls are the structure. So when you start taking the walls out and replacing them with beams, pretty soon you have little more than the idea of a shipping container. That was my first thought when I looked at Platoon Kunsthalle , an arts facility by Graft Architects in Seoul, Korea, built from 28 shipping containers.

Design & Architecture

Photo courtesy of Michael Jantzen

The Homestead House is an off-grid prefab concept made from recycled steel by designer Michael Jantzen.

The house makes use of prefabricated, commercially available steel which makes it both low in cost and extremely modular. In fact, it makes the size and shape of the structure completely customizable - not to mention really tough!

Design & Architecture

We mentioned Reclaimed Space in our review of What's New in Modern Prefab slideshow, noting that it deserves a full post. This isn't it; this is recognition of their very clever and generous way of unloading the prefab they took to Dwell on Design: auction it off and donate half of the proceeds to Habitat for Humanity.

Design & Architecture

Daniel Libeskind does modern prefab with the first of the Studio Series, a 515 square metre (5,500 square foot) number that Libeskind claims is built to "the highest level of sustainability in the world." It has solar power, "the maximum amount of insulation, and of course, is beautifully built to last hundreds of years- "that's sustainability!"

Design & Architecture

Photo by David Baker + Partners
Surely these eco-structures will get you drooling. There's everything from prefabulous bamboo huts to towering vertical gardens. And yes, I called you Shirley.

Design & Architecture

all images via Project Frog

Jim Kunstler, in his speech at the Ontario Heritage Conference, complained that we build schools like prisons; tiny windows, controlled access, high fences. "You are telling children that education is punishment when you build these schools." And most school portables are reminiscent of the sheds in Stalag 17 or the Great Escape. That is why I loved the prototype of Project Frog's reinvention of the portable at Greenbuild.

Now they have broken ground on a complex of them for The Center for Science and Global Citizenship at Watkinson School in Hartford, Connecticut.

Recent Comment by ParkStTaxPayer : "neato! I want to LIVE in one! Small, prefab homes are the way of the f..." [read]

Design & Architecture

Michelle Kaufmann in a Glidehouse in happier times

A year ago I wrote that modern prefab had lived fast, died young and left a good looking corpse. But I thought if anyone would survive it would be Michelle Kaufmann, the queen of prefab design and marketing, who when I wrote her best of green award, said "an entire industry rides on her coat-tails."

When times were good, Michelle could not find factories to build her stuff; they were making too much money building crap. When the crap market dried up, so did they. Then the banking crisis delivered the final cut, and it is over.

Design & Architecture

We used to show a lot of modern prefab, but is has fallen off the radar as of late, as we become more concerned about how we will get to where we build as well as the way we build. It used to be enough that something was built in the factory with greater precision and less waste; it isn't any more. We have tended to the really deep green, or to the very small designs that can fit in urban spaces.

So we provide herein some delightful eye candy, a few very interesting designs that we have missed, and a lovely rooftop intervention. Thanks to our source, Materialicious.