Cleveland has a land bank, and it’s going to grow once they start tearing down more vacant houses. You can buy the land on the cheap ($100 for a buildable lot), but then what to put on it? Seemed like a good time to browse the net and find out what was available in pre-fab housing. Yeah I know, pre-fab conjures up all sorts of boring images for some, but guess what, 21st Century pre-fabs are not like grandma’s used to be. So let’s do some web browsing:
First, a 2005 article in Business Week, Pre-fab Homes Get Fabulous. Allison Arieff of Dwell magazine wrote a book called Prefab, and she said she knew there was interest when she got thousands of emails asking her advice on purchasing these homes.
Do you know any cool prefab housing sites or makers? I’d love to have you share with us! Here is some of what I have found:
There is a site promoting Place Houses. They say they are “smart, affordable, and green.” They also say because they limit your choices, it keeps your costs down. I have to admit they lack a sexy appeal to me but then so does some of the new construction so why not?
Send2press.com talks aboutmodernist prefab. There is the pre fab LV Home. There is the Loftcube.
I have to admit I like this one a lot, the MK Lotus, designed by Michelle Kaufmann. From the sound of it, this design is not just giving the word ‘green’ lip service. Check out the look of the house, it’s really pretty.
Inhabit.com is a cool site, and every week they have Prefab Friday. Gotta love it! One of their posts featured Mdesign’s Mcube. No, not a McMansion, but what they describe in Inhabit as good looking and affordable ($80,000). Very good looking! And $100/square foot is a good price for new construction. It appears to be built with steel frame construction and (now here is my layman perception coming out) appears to be ‘wrapped’ in something like a giant shoji screen, giving it the appearance of an all window cube. Okay, go look at the photos yourself, but it really seems to combine modernist and Asian.
We have such a fabulous existing housing stock, but what would you think about shaking up the style of the home base we have here a bit, since we are going to have a lot of tearing down and rebuilding to do? In my mind, it just might make NE Ohio an even more innovative place to live and work. How about a community of these more modern prefab homes near one or two or three of the rapid stations that could use some spiffing up of the housing base?
There could be local designers who are already working on these ideas, are there any you could recommend? Do you think I have taken leave of my senses or do you like the idea? Peace Out – 3C
3 responses so far ↓
1 Elaine Reese // Jul 12, 2008 at 10:15 am
The “McCube” was interesting!
I like contemporary homes with lots of windows, so I found the various homes appealing.
However, also being a practical person, I noticed that the background settings of those homes appear to be in southern settings. Those flat roofs would present problems with the weight of our snow.
I’ve often wondered why prefab tends to have a negative image. To me, it would seem to be a positive in that the dimensions and squareness would be more exact than in a stick-built home. Maybe it’s because the options available so far, have been boxey and boring. I wonder if they are that way because they have to be sized to travel on roadways.
Elaine Reese’s last blog post..Delaware County Real Estate Taxes were due today!
2 Carole Cohen // Jul 12, 2008 at 11:05 am
Elaine you know what the flat roof really is a bit troubling, especially on the longer ones. The steel beam construction might help? I don’t know but that is a good question. You give me an idea, I think on Monday I am going to try to call a few of these people and see if they have any cold weather suggestions or comments regarding that.
3 Bookmarks about Ideas // Aug 17, 2008 at 9:30 am
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