This Prefabricated House in Spain Took Five Hours to Erect

One of the big advantages of doing a prefabricated house is the amount of time it takes to get something off the ground: lead times are reduced as components are pre-made in a factory and transported onto the site and put together. Sometimes it may only take hours, like this modern, two-storey structure by Spain's Baragaño Architects seen at ArchDaily, which apparently took a mere five hours to erect.

Nestled in a rural area in northwestern Spain, the 1,076-square-foot (100 square metres) Casa Montaña was created for an English landscaper and his family, who fell in love with the remote, hilly region of the Asturias and chose to build their new home here.

© Baragaño ArchitectsStanding two levels high, and clad with system of modular, three-dimensional, galvanized steel sheet elements which were first manufactured off-site and then welded together on location, while the black slate tiling was done on-site. The home is sited near an existing stone building and a hórreo -- a traditional building on stilts that's used for storing grain. The result is a striking contrast between the old and new, which the architects say conflate "[t]echnology and tradition in the days of Brexit."

© Baragaño Architects

The interior has an open-concept design for the first floor, which includes an airy kitchen and a large living room. There is no visual barrier from the staircase, which is made out of bent sheet metal that is suspended from above.

© Baragaño Architects

© Baragaño Architects

Going up, there are two bedrooms, which are separated by a translucent polycarbonate wall that aids in privacy but doesn't block natural daylight.

© Baragaño Architects

According to the architects, the home uses eight 7-by-17-foot (2.15 m by 5.30 m) modules, stacked in groups of four, one group on top of another.

Prior to assembly on-site, the components took about 4 months to fabricate at the factory. One of the big advantages was the reduction in noise and site disturbance during the five hours of assembly: most of the work has been done at the factory. The design itself has been made to be adaptable from the get-go for big changes in the future: it can be easily modified to accommodate for age-related disabilities, or disassembled to be moved elsewhere. As the designers say:

The modular construction system manufacturing assembly line not only seeks to optimize energy resources, human and material but also to optimize in benefit of customization and adaptation of the building.

© Baragaño Architects

© Baragaño Architects

In this case, this prefab house was done for a total cost of USD $194,891, and was finished from start to end in the space of a few months. Automation and prefabrication is potentially on the cusp of revamping the entire building industry; who doesn't want higher-quality and more energy-efficient buildings in less time? Yet, things are slow to change, and there are still some considerable barriers to overcome before innovative new technologies and ideas are fully incorporated in our building industries. To see more, visit Baragaño Architects.