ZenKaya: Prefab from South Africa
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04. 4.06
Headed by architect Eric Bigot, the driving concept behind ZenKaya is to make building a house as simple as buying a car. Once you have the house, the design is such that your lifestyle will be compact and simple as well; the studio unit is 3.4 meters wide by 6 meters in length; their system is expandable up to a two bed, two bathroom-sized home. Overall, simplicity combined with customization is the name of the game at ZenKaya -- "a headache-free process with cutting edge design," they call it. They want the design, production and delivery process to be as efficient as possible, leaving more time, money and energy to enjoy living. ::ZenKaya via ::Land+Living
And what do they do when it's windy? *thinking*... At least they save water - don't need to wash the windows - perfect for Africa :)
I love the design and idea behind these things, but they are definitely not Tornado Alley approved homes.
These houses are not "Tornado Alley approved" as you say, because we DON'T HAVE tornado's in Africa!
The issue with housing in South Africa at the moment is: poor people living in corrugated iron (and other found materials) shacks, or richer people living in "squatter camps" of identical faux-Tuscan looking "villas".
Somehow these "Afri-Tos" villas are very very expensive (like most property lately) but slightly more than most...
South Africans (okay, me) have been gagging for an alternative in design and price: Just the fact that someone realised the aesthetic and financial gap (without exploiting the market and environment further) is applaudable!
Even though they market this house as a "second / holiday home" I'm sure people can live in one permanently.
Except security would be an issue: we don't have tornados, but we DO have lots of tsotsi's (see reason above, the have and the have-nots): One will have to put up electric fencing around the "kaya" then, which will make it ugly and not very "zen" anymore...
I know there aren't any tornados in South Africa. (I had a hunch anyway) Prefab homes are picking up steam in the US, with companies trying to reduce the cost and effort of building homes by using assembly princples. It isnt' that the prefabs aren't built well, especially compared to most homes that are built by Polish Contracters, it's that the homes don't have much of a foundation.
Is "Polish" a euphemism for "bad stingy building contractor"? I don't know any Poles, except for Martha Stewart, but the description seems fitting LOL ;)
Yeah, the foundation thing, but then again, aren't most homes in the USA built out of wood, and can't withstand much tornado's / hurricanes / earthquakes anyway (okay, the basement / foundation is intact, but the top of the house is normally gone)?
As a rule, buildings here (in SA) are built out of brick and mortar, which is lovely and sturdy, but does nothing in way of temperature control, thus, not very energy efficient.
You have to admit though, the ZenKaya LOOKS a lot more funky than most!
Excuse me but I need to protest against that "Polish contractors" thing. The quality of work depends on design and materials invested, not on nationality, eh? What MAY depend on nationality is the time needed for building a thing. Please do not repeat stupid stereotypes!