Green Design: SG Blocks Shipping Container Homes

Green Design Prefab Home Picture

SG Blocks Shipping Container Homes – Though ugly on the docks, shipping containers can be turned into something beautiful. The SG Blocks Harbinger Prefab is constructed of five containers. That means the steel frame can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Its also eco-friendly with FSC-certified woods, solar panels, rainwater recycling and a resource monitoring system from Agilewaves. Best of all, this funky home took under five hours to assemble after a month of fabrication, and it doesn’t look too much like the raw materials. To call one of these your home, it would take a day and a crane to install up to 12 containers, and the Lawrence Group, who designed the SG Blocks home, says it costs 15 percent less than a typical home constructed of wood. Time to get stacking.

Dwell retools on prefab with Marmol Radziner, Turkel Design

Turkel Design on Prefab

Put this one in the category of Interesting Timing. Just as other modern prefab companies are scaling back or calling it quits -- and as real-estate developers and architecture firms of all sizes continue to struggle -- Dwell magazine is launching a new iteration of its prefab construction arm.

At its Dwell on Design conference this weekend in Los Angeles, the company will unveil a new collaboration, under its Dwell Homes Collection label, with architecture firms Marmol Radziner and Turkel Design.

Turkel -- run by Joel Turkel, an architect and a veteran of Empyrean, the company that developed Dwell's prefab line before abruptly closing last year -- will design three prefab houses for Dwell Homes. L.A.'s Marmol Radziner, which recently shuttered its own prefab factory in Vernon, will offer six. The houses will be built by Lindal Cedar Homes, an established manufactured-home company based in Seattle.

My guess is this is more about the appearance of momentum for Dwell's prefab efforts than actual momentum.

Modern, Naturally Prefab Houses

A steel-and-glass prefab home connects to the outdoors.

Modern and Natural Prefabricated House Picture

When Boston architect Jim Higgins purchased a little gray house and an adjoining plot of land on Spinney Creek in Eliot, Maine, he thought he had found the perfect project. His plan was to fix up and sell the existing house and build another traditional New England-style home next door. Instead, he built a low-lying, rectilinear house sheathed in corrugated galvanized steel -- a far cry from the shingled Cape Cod-style homes that surround it.

The End of the Road for Modern Prefab? This Just Might Be The Beginning!

The Glidehouse Is At The End Of The Road For Green Modern Prefab, my thoughts on the rise and, I thought, fall of the modern prefab movement. Joe Tanney is partner in Resolution: 4 architecture and architect of the original Dwell House and a master of modern prefab. As evidence, he sent pictures of a recent project, The Peconic Bay House, which he calls a "Power Plant" because it produces more energy than it consumes. Joe talks: "End of the road for green prefab? In fact, I think this just might be the beginning." He continues:

"This Prefab Power Plant operates $ 0.18 a day, because that's what it costs to be connected to the grid. In fact, several of our most recent projects are mini-power-plants. We are using co-generational systems of solar photovoltaic panels coupled with geo-thermal heat pumps (rather conventional technology these days) to generate more energy than are homes are designed to consume, and selling the unused energy back to the grid. RES4 PREFABS now produce more energy than they consume."

Joe then gave me his thoughts on the state of prefab: "It may be premature to call prefab dead when it has yet to really live. Or you might say we are still in the re-birthing phase ... maybe some have been still-born, yes. And maybe some will be resuscitated. Maybe not. Or maybe this is just part of the natural life cycle of prefab, which has always ebbed & flowed with varying degrees of success. Maybe this is prefab's winter season. Maybe some approaches are seasonal and some are evergreen. This pursuit of the "holy grail of modernism" is an ever evolving journey, a work-in-progress. History has clearly shown us that this is not a simple issue to be "solved" merely with branding or "productization." Maybe, it will take an evolution of one house at a time, instead of an immediate revolution, thus requiring a resolution ... "

Resolution 4 followed a different model than others, acting as full service architects and using prefabrication as just another tool. "As architects, we've been fortunate, so far, in that we have built RES4 PREFABS | THE MODERN MODULAR by RESOLUTION: 4 ARCHITECTURE from Maine to Hawaii, using modular, panelized, and hybrid delivery methods. We do not sell boxes; we are hired as architects and attempt to find the best bang for the buck by leveraging existing methods of prefabrication: working within the limits of the industry, always looking for fulfillment partners who are "best in class." In an effort not to fall prey to zombie prefab, we continue to refine and develop our system of design, the modern modular, with each home we complete."

"I just wanted to say, like Monty Python in the bring out your dead skit, we ain't dead yet..."