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McPreFab: Res:4's Big Box
Is that giant prefab vacation home really green?
Inhabitat is a great blog about design, focusing on the sustainable, modular, multitasking variety. But like many who do it and cover it, the editors pose the question: If it's good design, shouldn't it already, inherently, be green? Given today's users, their experience, and an object's place and effect on its surroundings (all right, we'll use the word: environment), shouldn't good design at least address some of those concerns in order to be considered good design?
Inhabit thinks so, and smartly reminds us that Modernism already talked about so much of this. Lest we forget our history: The classic Modernists preached sincerely about the responsibility to be balanced, ordered, not wasteful, and considerate. So in a sense Inhabitat, for all its bright young stars, has become a bit of a Trad's blog, in a good way. Which is why a recent post on a Resolution 4: Architecture house built in the Hamptons caught my eye.
Resolution: 4 Architecture (or Res: 4) is a group of NYC-based architects out to prove that prefab can be superbly crafted and handsome as heck. They work with modulars by prefab's new guard (Empyrean and Simplex Industries for instance), ushering each project into a sleek testament to how architects can turn modular into masterpiece. In process, their constructions have been the focus of some great blogging (see this totally engaging, human, thought-provoking blog on building a Res4 cabin, A PreFab Project). Once completed, they look unique, kind of modern, but somehow different. They're modern, to be sure, but a bit more restrained in their angles; boxy; kind of ... innocuous-looking. You can practically hear that great green goddess in the sky intoning her husky-voiced answer: "That's because they are Prefab."
The house in the Hamptons, the Swingline, is no cabin, however. Take a look at how it's put together (it may be modular, but it's big). And the controversy in the Inhabitat post lies in just how sustainable it really is, if it takes up nearly the same footprint as a McMansion.
Inhabitat's Sarah writes:
Inhabit thinks so, and smartly reminds us that Modernism already talked about so much of this. Lest we forget our history: The classic Modernists preached sincerely about the responsibility to be balanced, ordered, not wasteful, and considerate. So in a sense Inhabitat, for all its bright young stars, has become a bit of a Trad's blog, in a good way. Which is why a recent post on a Resolution 4: Architecture house built in the Hamptons caught my eye.
Resolution: 4 Architecture (or Res: 4) is a group of NYC-based architects out to prove that prefab can be superbly crafted and handsome as heck. They work with modulars by prefab's new guard (Empyrean and Simplex Industries for instance), ushering each project into a sleek testament to how architects can turn modular into masterpiece. In process, their constructions have been the focus of some great blogging (see this totally engaging, human, thought-provoking blog on building a Res4 cabin, A PreFab Project). Once completed, they look unique, kind of modern, but somehow different. They're modern, to be sure, but a bit more restrained in their angles; boxy; kind of ... innocuous-looking. You can practically hear that great green goddess in the sky intoning her husky-voiced answer: "That's because they are Prefab."
The house in the Hamptons, the Swingline, is no cabin, however. Take a look at how it's put together (it may be modular, but it's big). And the controversy in the Inhabitat post lies in just how sustainable it really is, if it takes up nearly the same footprint as a McMansion.
Inhabitat's Sarah writes:
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13:07 EDT, 08.Oct.07