The Low Down On Green Living
July 1st, 2009
Dwell Prefab Home Collection Announced
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Dwell Magazine has partnered with some very well-known architects and builders to develop a signature line of prefab homes. The homes not only focus on sustainable design and building, but look amazing as well. Turkel Design in collaboration with Lindal Cedar Homes and then Marmol Radziner Prefab each designed three modern prefab homes to be featured as part of the Dwell Home Collection. Dwell’s recent selection of these particular prefab home designs indicates the quality of design, modern amenities and most importantly the integration of sustainable features to create a efficient and eco-friendly home.
Marmol Radziner Prefab Homes Skyline Series
Marmol Radziner has been incorporating prefabricated elements into its buildings since 1996. They built their first prefab home in 2004 and ever since have been improving their design and fabrication methods. Their prefabricated modules are factory made and shipped whole to the site complete with windows, doors, interior and exterior finishes. This helps minimize waste during the construction process. For the Dwell Home Collection, Marmol Radziner designed the Skyline series, which are customizable homes with six different configurations, ranging in size from 1,755 to 3,180 sq ft with one or two stories.
The Skyline series features a number of sustainable design elements, including extensive use of wood that is FSC certified. Cabinets and interior finishes are built with recovered and recycled content fiber as well as formaldehyde free. All kitchen appliances are Bosch and Energy Star rated as is the HVAC system. Floor to ceiling windows are double pane and low-E and let in a lot of daylight. The doors and windows are also optimized to and located to encourage natural ventilation. Solar photovoltaics systems as well as radiant heating are optional features, but highly recommended. All Marmol Radziner homes are designed to receive LEED certification, although the exact rating depends on the location of the home.
Turkel Design + Lindal Cedar Homes Prefab Collection
Joe Turkel already designed a signature home for Dwell back in 2005 called the NextHouse. Even at the time it was an advanced prefab home full of many sustainable elements. Now Turkel has teamed up with Lindal Cedar Homes, a home builder known for their post and beam homes as well as their energy efficient homes. In fact, Lindal Cedar Homes along with Turkel Design were recently named for architecture in Time Magazines Green Design 100. Three of their designs were chosen to be part of the Dwell Home Collection due to their efficient and modern design. Homes vary in size from 2,100 to 2,700 sq ft.
Lindal Cedar Homes is very committed to green home building and have 17 green principles by which they build their homes. Their homes have a strong focus on natural lighting and a connection with the outdoors through their use of large decks and outdoor living spaces. Lindal and Turkel only use responsibly harvested wood for the homes along with an efficient manufacturing process in a factory that minimizes the use of natural resources. With 60 years of experience in building homes, Lindal has even developed and patented a number of building processes that make the homes even more efficient. During the design process, designers focus on site layout, solar gain, and natural ventilation. Only energy efficient appliances and systems are installed and the home can be delivered all in one load to reduce transportation.
Both series of homes for the Dwell Home Collection are modern and simple in design, but also approachable for the average person. Prices for these homes are definitely out of range for the average home builder though. While the designs are great, accessible and eco-friendly, their price will be hard for many to swallow.
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Comments
Lindal in 2009: The first half. | Lindal Cedar Homes Blog
July 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[...] In-depth review of the Dwell Homes Collection at Low Impact Living: The low down on living green [...]
Debra Hull
July 7th, 2009 at 9:01 am
So good to see PREFAB going forward. We are another option for those who are searching for a more “tradtional” type of architecture- or need to honor a historic design venue We have been doing PRE-fab in the Southeast since 1999. Architectural Building Systems is an award-winning, architecturally-driven design/build firm. Let us know if we can collaborate in any way.
mary Finley
July 7th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Alas! More prefabs that are gorgeous, but EXPENSIVE! Isn’t the idea of prefab to be able to produce a home in a more economical manner? I cannot afford the house, and the land, and the lot prep and..and..and. Guess I’ll have to stick with a stick built, non-green house that is at least a roof over my head. There will be many boomers in my position soon, and I would hope the home builders and architects would offer affordable housing instead of high end.
geoff fulton
July 7th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
To those who think prefabs are expensive, have alook at the amazing SMALLisSMART HOUSE on http://www.fultonsalomon.com. They start at under $30,000. Yes, at that price it is D.I.Y. from book full of drawings and step by step instructions including all the material lists and tools required to build the house. If you can read an IKEA instruction sheet to build a set of bookshelves, then two teenagers can build a SMALLisSMART HOUSE. They are ideal for first home buyers, retirees, granny flats, student / rental accommodation, hunting and ski lodges. They can grow with the family by just adding modules. They are fire resistant and hurricane safe! We have built one house using 12 shipping containers and have one 6500 square foot luxury house with 6 bed and breakfast units on the board to be constructedfrom 29 containers in Orlando Florida.
We are looking for agents in USA and Canada.
Alex
July 10th, 2009 at 8:18 am
How much do these homes cost? Can you build them in an urban environment? How about on the East Coast?
I would really consider this kind of thing, but I live in a city and I don’t know if there are designs that can accomodate an in-fill site.
Thanks-
Debbie Hunt
July 17th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Do you have any prefab sunrooms?
Thanks,
Debbie
Pamela
July 31st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I am a person who bought and built one of the Dwell prefab homes. Ours was a previously championed Dwell home as well and designed by Charlie Lazor and supplied by Empyrean.
I have come to your blog after reading the latest issue of Dwell and being more than slightly annoyed by their latest advertisement of the launch of the new series of Dwell homes that are cost effective among other things.
Our experience is as follows:
-The price per square footage of $250 is an outright lie. It is virtually impossible to meet this price point. Granted, I am in the Bay Area, but to give you an idea, I have friends who had total custom homes designed and built that came in at $300-$350. We came out at $450. We were not alone here as many other customers experienced this
-The concept of “pre fab”, as most people imagine, is negligible at best when you have something like Lindal or Empyrean as a manufacturer. Actually, using the term “prefab” is totally misleading. We were sold a modular concept and the house came in pieces. When I say pieces, I mean it came one piece of timber by one piece in shipments. Prefab as I view it is either completely constructed or it comes in pieces that fit together easily.
-There is no time savings in this sort of home building. An example of this is how the contractor has to understand what pieces have been given, and then fit them together. In a traditional way he would do it himself and know what he had. Often, we were shorted timber or bits of roof and he had to do it anyway and that was a cost suck as well. Also, sometimes things just did not fit at all.
-Another thing people may not understand. When you buy a factory home you sign a purchase license and pay a very large sum upfront. Given then economy you need to be damn certain you receive your house! Many people that signed contracts only received half their house before Empyrean went under. We were fortunate for several reasons. We received the whole house and when we went more than 50% over budget we squeaked by with finishing our house.
-We were sold the concept that there was an “interior package” that would make outfitting the house more cost effective. This was untrue as well, there was no package that provided real cost savings.
-Buyers need to understand building codes very well before buying into a prefab concept/home or before purchasing their land. We were extremely lucky that our designs passed thru design review! But more than that, doing things like California retrofitting adds significant cost. It is not as easy as buying and building!
-The idea of green with this sort of prefab is a joke. As my husband likes to say “The only green thing about this house is the greenbacks we put into it”. Seriously, the notion of green? Yes, perhaps slightly more green, but honestly, it has become a marketing term. Our counter tops are “green”-they are made from resin!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so what are the positives? Here is one:
-the factory built homes by Empyrean and Lindal are extremely high quality. Construction is done very very well. Most materials were high quality like window framing that might have been impossible to find elsewhere-ours are mahogony.
I think Dwell has misused their branding as well as misled their readers. I would not have bought so hook line and sinker into this concept if I had not read voraciously on the promise of prefab. The promise in many cases do not meet the reality. I can not speak for all pre fabs but only for this certain quota of factory built homes that really should not be qualified as prefab, nor cost effective, nor green.
Regards,
Pamela
Rosalyn
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Pamela,
Your response to the Dwell Collection has caught my attention. We are in the process of purchasing a Lindal/2009 Dwell home. Yes, these are supposedly affordable and I’m interested in learning how the project exceeded the budget of $250/sq. ft.
1. What is the square footage of your home and what was your package cost?
2. Did you hire a general contractor to frame and finish the house and at what
expense?
3. You mentioned the California retrofiting. Were these extra engineering and architectural costs?
4. Is Empryean similar to Lindal?
I appreciate you sharing your story and including any details you might add to the questions I have above to help us in making a decision about this major endeavor here in CA. It sounds as though you would would have gone the traditional route if you were to do it again. Your thoughts have been extremely informative so far!
Regards,
Rosalyn
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