If you’ve still got a notion that prefab, or factory-built, homes are anything but fabulous it’s time to take a fresh look at the industry. Prefab homes can have significant environmental benefits including reducing material and waste. The marriage of high design, sustainable and factory-built are starting to arrive in modular homes that can be assembled on site in less than a day.
One of the architects leading the new prefab revolution is Michelle Kaufmann, lead of Michelle Kaufmann Designs and creator of some of the most beautiful, sustainable prefab homes on the market this day. Ms. Kaufmann has succeeded in fulfilling the promise of prefab - high quality, sustainable, reasonably priced. Her designs are some of the most thoughtful around in terms of aesthetics, engineering and just about everything else related to home design.
Her own home in California is the prototype but was built on site. Kaufmann had an identical modular home built in the factory and the comparative results speak volumes about the benefits of prefab. Smithsonian featured Kaufmann’s home the Glidehouse earlier this year reporting that the site built home took almost two years to build and cost $363,950 or $233 per square foot. The factory-built Glidehouse took four months and cost $290,500 or $182 per square foot.
Prefab is part of the momentum that green building is gaining in the mainstream. The market is growing fast and it’s estimated that by 2010, 10 percent of the new home construction market will be green, according to the 2006 McGraw-Hill Construction Residential Green Building SmartMarket Report. Michelle Kaufmann’s prefab designs - filled with energy-efficient elements, sustainable materials and healthy finishes - are not just a part of that momentum, they are a leading factor.
And, in the spirit of the season, her latest prefab design the mkLotus is also made in gingerbread!
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