Even in the dicey economy, construction financing for the Nzinga Townhomes in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn is moving forward and developer Yolande Nicholson hopes to break ground on the modular green project early in 2009. Designed by Garrison Architects, each 2900-square-foot condominium townhouse includes 2000 square feet of living space for owners with an additional 900 square feet of separate rentable apartment space. In addition to offering heating and cooling benefits, an exterior living green wall is irrigated by a building-integrated graywater system.
November 12th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | ContinuedPrefab
Prefab FitHouse 2009 by Resolution 4 Architecture Heads to Hamptons
Cooking Light magazine recently announced that its 2009 FitHouse will be located in Sagaponack, New York; its FitHouse initiative has been ongoing since 2002 and promotes healthy living through a home that features green design, construction, products, and landscaping. Next year’s FitHouse will be designed by Manhattan-based Resolution 4 Architecture as a 3000-square-foot, modern, prefabricated four-bedroom home. In addition to a variety of green features, the house will also include a pool and bocce court. Res 4 principal Joseph Tanney will supervise both design and construction phases of the project and also plans to seek an unspecified level of LEED certification for the Fithouse. The house will include a geothermal heating and cooling system, solar panels, and a graywater system.
October 29th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Home Delivery & BURST*: MoMA Launches Online Journal for Prefab Exhibition
MoMA, as you’ll recall, has commissioned five architects to build prefabricated homes in the parking lot adjacent to the museum where 2008 Pritzker Prize winner Jean Nouvel’s 53 West 53rd Street tower will eventually rise. Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling will open up on July 20 and feature residences designed by KieranTimberlake Associates, Lawrence Sass of MIT, Douglas Gauthier and Jeremy Edmiston, Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Ruf, and Richard Horden. The museum recently launched a blog that details each team’s progress in creating and assembling its respective homes for the exhibition; the first dwelling will arrive at the site for assembly on May 22.
April 2nd, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Modular Homes’ LEED-Certified Model Home to Debut in Robbinsville, NJ
Modular Homes, Inc. (“MHI”) is an Edison, New Jersey-based custom modular home builder that will break ground in April on what it hopes will be a LEED-certified model home in Robbinsville, New Jersey. MHI homes are built from wood and individual modules are delivered with maximum dimensions of 16’ wide x 75’ long x 14’ high. Homes arrive on site with all finishes, as well as doors, cabinets, appliances, and lights, installed. Modular construction is obviously much more environment-friendly than traditional construction, as individual components are prefabricated off-site.
March 12th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued
Ikea, Skanska Unveil First Prefab BoKlok Show Home in Gateshead, England
In light of MoMA’s looming exhibition on the subject this summer, prefab housing is guaranteed to be a hot green topic throughout 2008. As such, Ikea last week unveiled its first BoKlok (“smart living” in Swedish) show home in England’s Gateshead (in the north, just south of Newcastle). The company actually started its line of prefabricated homes in cooperation with Skanska back in 1997, and received planning permission for ninety-three of the BoKlok dwellings in Gateshead last April. Ikea has already installed 3,500 of the homes throughout Scandinavia, which are offered in two- and three-bedroom arrangements.
January 31st, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
New York Architect Merges Green Design and Low Cost at ASAP House in Sag Harbor
This weekend’s New York Times Real Estate section featured a story about ASAP (which stands for About Saving a Planet), the name Manhattan architect Laszlo Kiss has given the eco-friendly, low cost modular home prototype he designed in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Kiss, who lives full-time in The Hamptons, created the ASAP home as a response to the “energy-hogging” mansions that surround him in his East End neighborhood.
January 29th, 2008 | Meredith Taylor | 1 comment | Continued
Green Meets Prefab in Midtown: MoMA Reveals Designers for Interactive Prefab Home Exhibition
The Museum of Modern Art announced yesterday that it has commissioned five architects to build prefabricated homes in the parking lot adjacent to the museum where Jean Nouvel’s ambitiously sustainable 53 West 53rd Street tower will eventually rise. Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling will open up on July 20 and feature residences designed by [...]
January 9th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued