Dressing up a trailer, then and now.

Although I have absolutely no numbers with which to back up my hunch, I would bet that dressing up a trailer – or drastically modifying it as the case seems be with the TrailerWrap Project – isn't going to be any less expensive than building a modest little modern house from scratch.

I have the same suspicion of shipping container houses. Just getting those behemoths settled on the site seems daunting . . .

Marcel Breuer wrapped his trailer way back in 1949 or so. His Wolfson Trailer House surrounds a 1948 Royal Mansion Spartan Trailer, which serves mostly as the house's kitchen and dining area. I think the house and studio on 10 acres in Duchess County, NY, is still for sale by our friend, the painter David Diao. – GF

Noticed on Freshome. (container photo: Leger Wanaselja Architects)

Happy 1st day of Autumn! But I’m not ready to close the doors yet. . .

Planhaus is an Austrian architecture firm which, according to my online translator, focuses “on the development of house types in system-building . . . in the area of the ecological low energy houses”. (I'm pretty sure 'system-building' means prefab.)

Next to their Haus kr35 is an outbuilding, or summer house, which does that total opening up thing I'm so crazy about these days.

Built in what looks to be a more suburban neighborhood is another summerhouse, more like a dining-house. I love the long built-in bench, but could do without the chandelier . . .


This city summer house sits atop a building in Vienna, and even has an outdoor shower.

Big windows, façades that completely open up, and interiors of light, clear, sweet-smelling larch wood give the rooms a cabin-like feeling, but none of the 'closeness' of a rustic cabin from which you might get a case of cabin fever. – GF

Photos seem to be by Wolf Leeb, Vienna.

Category: Live Here Now

There are a few houses I keep in a mental file that I could walk into and immediately call home. Some I have physically been in (I have told architect Alan Goldberg on more than one occasion that his own house in New Canaan feels so right to me, it's hard to leave when the other guests do). Others I see online or in print. There's that elusive combo of comfort and delight that makes me to just want to stay. . .

Here's another one, from Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune: No.5 House. Nothing fancy – it just "talks to me." They also design some prefabs, one of which looks like it will be on my Live Here Now list – the Folded Roof House, found under 'In Progress'. Claesson Koivisto Rune is a multi-talented, multi-disciplined group; there is a lot to see on their site. – GF

Update: Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling

The Museum of Modern Art's Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling show opens in just 11 days. Some of the five, full-scale contemporary prefabricated houses are completed by now, and a couple are wrapping up to meet the opening date of the show on July 20th.

I've enjoyed reading the journals kept by the architects of each house and by the members of the curatorial staff at MoMA who are working on the exhibition. Today's New York Times has a teeny slide show, which isn't very informative, here. Best of all, if you have the time, are these videos from MoMA. Fantastic.

It takes something very special indeed to get me into NYC on a steamy summer day, but this might just be the thing. Or maybe I'll wait 'til Fall, when the heat and the initial crowds subside. – GF

Magic Box prefab cute cube

On a city rooftop or as a "summerhouse" on the edge of the property, this prefab structure is light-filled and fun. Created by Jun Ueno of Magic Box Inc., the Magic Box takes about a week to put up, after foundation and any other site work is done. – GF (via inhabitat and MocoLoco)

Rocio 'round the corner

I will certainly consider traveling up the Hudson Valley a little ways to Rocio Romero's LVL open house in Gallatin, NY.

Go to the website for specifics, but the basics are:
Event Date: Saturday, March 1, 2008
Tour Times: 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m.
Tour Fee: $40 per person
Registration Closes: Thursday, February 28, 2008 at Noon CST
A chartered coach will transport attendees to the LVL Open House tour site, approximately 20 miles from the registration site. During the shuttle transport, Rocio Romero staff will discuss their latest LV builds and the customization options available to LV homeowners. – GF

I'll take one, please!

Since shelf space is at a premium (and I'm too cheap!) I'll be asking my library to buy this book: Contemporary PreFab Houses by Erin Cullerton (Author), Michelle Galindo (Designer), published by daab out of Cologne, Germany. I couldn't get the publisher's pages to load quickly enough (5 minutes per page?!?), so here's what MoCo LoCo has to say about it: Due out next month Contemporary Prefab Houses is the first in a series of daab reference books with a compact landscape format that gives a detailed presentation of all projects, showing concepts, photos and texts.

Of course Amazon has it here.

(via the girl in the green dress + MoCo LoCo) – GF

Watershed – a writer's studio

A writing studio, built by architect Erin Moore of FLOAT architectural research and design, for her mother, a philosophy professor and nature writer of some note, is described by FLOAT, in part, like this: The writing studio is designed to reveal the ecological complexity of the site to visitors and in this way it is successful: Small tunnels under the studio bring rare reptiles and amphibians into view through the floor-level window. The water collection basin that doubles as the front step draws in birds and deer. At midday, the silhouettes of these animals project from the water onto the interior ceiling. Windows on the west and north sides frame different bird habitats—the tops of fence row trees and the patch of sky at a hilltop updraft. The roof diaphragm amplifies rain sounds and the collection basin is a measure of past rainfall.

Read more about its other ecological attributes here, under "current research". It's called "watershed". via inhabitat – GF

cosy and quick on a mountainside

Fueling my interests in alpine and prefab architecture, I was happy to learn about The Heidis, designed in 1999 by Milanese Matteo Thun + Partners. This prefab house fits in nicely on the alp landscape. I like the way the beds are built in in the kids' room – GF

via Architecture Talk

Mountain PreFab

I have had the great good luck of having visited Switzerland more than 20 times, and am somewhat besotted with the architecture of the cantons that I know well, foremost being the Engadine area in the far eastern canton of Gräubunden. There, you see farmhouses a few hundred years old clustered in a hamlet, perhaps centered on a fountain from which livestock and their humans get good spring water. Many houses have decorated façades, the designs and illustrations - whimsical, familial, biblical, pagan - scraped into the wet, freshly whitewashed exterior walls, and often enhanced with color.


I found this today - no room for "sgrafitto" façade decoration here . . . It's all glass!

You can get a good look at this German company's offerings here: http://www.huf-haus.com/de/intro.html
– GF