MOMO Mixes Clean Lines, Green Roofs
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 10.17.07
Scandinavians cherish summer more than most - they don't mind tight urban quarters but when the sun shines they want to decamp to a cute little stuga (cottage) close to the water. Swedish architect Thomas Lind designed MOMO - which stands for Modernistiskt Modulhuskoncept, or modern module house concept - to get away from the cutesy part but still keep everything else required of a summer abode. Lind says MOMO's modular prefab units come in flat packs but must be assembled by an experienced builder. Lind doesn't claim that the 10-square-meter (107 sq. ft.) modules are deep green, though their small size certainly helps. He says they are "high quality and healthy materials" mainly solid wood using traditional stains outside and whitewash on inner walls.
The greenest part of MOMO modules are definitely the roofs, which will use the conventional Swedish mix of water-storing succulents and grasses, and help keep the buildings pleasant in summer. Oh yeah, and that cool sail-like structure in the photo is what Lind calls the 'outdoor roof' - a sturdy stretched cloth providing shade and that he says will easily stand up to summer rainstorms. Cost per module runs around $25,000. The first MOMO summer houses will be assembled in Sweden... Probably in time for mid-summer 2008. ::MOMO
