2 Comments »

Prefab Modules from FlatPak Enable Do-it-Yourself Design

• Tweet

• Tweet

FlatPak prefabs are based on using an assortment of pre fabricated components in industry-standard 8 foot units, the combination of which yields unique solutions to each client’s needs and site.  They help focus your design, too.

For each section, you pick between the “window up,” window down” “all wood”, all concrete, etc. The combination of options are limitless. However, these are just for the exterior shell. Inside, there is more customization.

Here, the eight foot units form a sunfilled home for a New York couple in Woodstock. But for their house, they broke the rule: look at that far wall. There is an extra two or three feet added at the back.

The extra few feet was added at the back, behind the kitchen. Note how deeply the sun floods this interior because of the double height windows at the front of the cube.

The extra few feet accommodates a stair that leads from the living room and goes up behind the kitchen to the bedroom landing upstairs.

The interiors get more customization, once the traffic needs are found. The strict 8′ section can also be split between two rooms inside, as in this bedroom.

This made a narrower space for this bathroom.

Outside the dining end of the main room downstairs, you can see how the “concrete” module looks across the porch. This forms the front entrance area, the front door is to the far left in this picture.

When the module size is strictly restricted, and an effort made to work with it, and make it work for living in, I think it can be done well. It can give a sense of a peaceful rhythmic procession, as in traditional Japanese architecture.