Assemble with care: Wallpaper’s pick of the finest pre-fabs
Assemble with care: Wallpaper’s pick of the finest pre-fabs
Ground-up projects and sensitive conversions may be conventional main-stays in the world of architecture, but, with the right approach, pre-packaged structures are no less fabulous. Here’s Wallpaper’s round-up of the most attractive fabrications around the world.
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Y: Cube: The YMCA’s new Y:Cube housing development in Mitcham, London hopes to provide a cheap housing solution to young people who would otherwise not be able to afford their own home. The colourful units originate at a factory in Derbyshire and are stacked and stitched together for on-site completion
Writer: Daisy Alioto
Y: Cube: The 26 sq m units are divided into two main spaces – a living/kitchen space and a bedroom with an en suite
Bert’s Boxes: This timber pre-fab by London’s Bert & May takes advantage of reclaimed materials and the current zeitgeist for cabin living. Blue and white tiles and brass details are a major step up from the average camper
Bert’s Boxes: The best news? Bert’s Boxes are made to order and can be delivered anywhere in the world
Casa Invisibile: ’Invisibility’ is central to the uniqueness of Casa Invisibile’s design, with a mirrored exterior that reflects back the landscape (here pictured in rural Slovenia)
Casa Invisibile: Vienna-based Delugan Meissl Associated Architects conceived the light-filled pre-fab for mass production, with optional additions like a cosy fireplace or terrace
Jean Prouvé’s pre-fab: Wallpaper* Editor-in-Chief Tony Chambers had a front row seat when Patrick Seguin and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners teamed up to contemporise Jean Prouvé’s seminal pre-fab. The humble house design was originally created in 1944 to shelter France’s displaced Second World War survivors
PATH: Philippe Starck is so confident in the merits of his pre-fab parked outside Paris, that he is living in it. The central thrusts of the house, beauty and environmental responsibility, sum up ‘the ethic of the life of an old man called Philippe Starck’, the designer says
PATH: Rooftop energy-producing technologies guarantee the home will produce 50 per cent more energy than it consumes
Rondolino Residence: This pre-fab prototype was built for Italian writer Fabrizio Rondolino near Nevada’s Death Valley, by Peter Strzebniok and Kelly Ishida Sloan of San Francisco based Nottoscale architects
Rondolino Residence: Strzebniok and Ishida Sloan corresponded with the client and his wife entirely by email
Rondolino Residence: The result is a T-shaped floorplan including three bedrooms, a large deck and hot tub (though no central air conditioning)
Moose Road House: An intentionally bare, wine country retreat designed for two San Franciscan couples, Moose Road House’s raw plywood and uninhibited views constitute a weary urbanite’s dream
Cabin at Norderhov: Atelier Oslo provides shelter at all angles with Cabin at Norderhov
Cabin at Norderhov: The laminated wood pre-fab is supported by steel rods drilled directly into the rocky terrain. It’s a forest retreat ideal for hiking and skiing
Cabin at Norderhov: Solar panels provide the cabin’s only electricity source. Curved plywood surfaces are ideal for lounging and reading once the sun sets on the Nordic landscape – but one is more likely to cosy up by the fireplace, a focal point of the space
Perriand’s beach house: In 2013, French designer Charlotte Perriand’s 1934 beach house pre-fab was finally realised by Louis Vuitton
Perriand’s beach house: Perriand’s daughter described how the design was ahead of its time: ’No one was interested in building it. The reaction was one of dislike to horror.’ Fortunately, simple sliding doors, a sailcloth-covered deck and other contemporary details fit right in at Design Miami
Happycheap House: Tommy Carlsson’s Happycheap House shifts the Stockholm suburbs away from a pre-fab model stuck in the 1970’s
Happycheap House: Corrugated steel exteriors give way to warm, plywood interiors and creative spacial arrangements that transcend conventional squares and rectangles