Modular goes upscale

Mansions go modular as costs,
timeline lure high-end buyers

Washington Post, 3/3/10

"Custom modular -- it sounds like an oxymoron. But elite architects who've seen their business drop in the recession are teaming up with manufacturers across the country...

'Without the recession, nobody would be paying attention,' said Russell Versaci, a Middleburg architect specializing in farmhouses for wealthy clients who partnered with Haven [Homes] in 2008."

Read Washington Post article

Once the scourge of homebuilding, modular homes have gone upscale. Washington Post writer Lisa Rein tells of a "prefabricated, modular mansion, dropped in from the jib of a crane and set in place like a layer cake" in Bethesda, Maryland.

In a mere 32 hours, the $2.5 million, 7200 sf house was set in place and ready for finishing -- a process that would have taken at least 18 months and cost nearly $400,000 more had the house been built by a crew at the home site.

View comparison chart of modular vs. stick-built

In addition to time and cost savings, modular building stacks up environmentally, with advantages that include a tighter building envelope made possible by factory construction, increased energy efficiency, and reduced job site waste.

Until the recession, very little had changed in homebuilding since the Middle Ages. Men still trudged up and down ladders, toiled through inclement weather, and waited for parts arriving late.

Given the degree to which technological invention has altered every other facet of life, this stasis seemed counterintuitive. Modular construction has the potential to change homebuilding permanently, with quality and cost advantages achieved by controlled indoor production.

Builders who have been slow to embrace modular construction are gradually coming around, spurred by the need to offer more cost-effective building options to homebuyers. Likewise, homebuyers who never would have considered building modular homes in the past are realizing the real benefits offered by this method of building. Even architects, who have long turned up their noses at the very notion, are seeing the writing on the wall and are designing homes meant to be built in factories.

In the new economy, pragmatism trumps all other considerations.

Above: Currier Farmhouse, right: New Republic Cottage
Pennywise Houses, Russell Versaci Architecture

The Cradles of Classic American Home Styles

From Roots of Home: the Ten Colonial Cradles

America’s classic home styles were born in ten regional cradles that nurtured distinctive house forms rooted in Old World traditions. Below are the ten regions -- and the main vernacular house styles that emerged from each region's particular blend of culture, geography, climate, and resources:

St Lawrence and Mississippi Valleys

The first French settlement was founded at Port-Royal on the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1604, followed by exploration of the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley.

NORMANDY FARMHOUSE, ACADIAN COTTAGE

New England Coast

English Pilgrims established Plimoth Plantation on the New England coast in 1621 and spurred the founding of compact villages from Connecticut to Maine.

SALTBOX, CAPE COD COTTAGE, GARRISON COLONIAL

Hudson Valley

The Dutch founded New Amsterdam in 1624, while French Huguenots and Flemish Walloons settled into the Hudson Valley from New Jersey to upstate New York.

DUTCH GABLE TOWNHOUSE, HUDSON STONE FARMHOUSE, DUTCH GAMBREL

Delaware Valley

The Delaware Valley was first home to New Sweden (1638) and later Pennsylvania (1682), a haven for English Quakers as well as German and Scots-Irish émigrés.

SCANDINAVIAN LOG CABIN, PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH FARMHOUSE

Chesapeake Bay

On Chesapeake Bay, the Virginia colony was founded by the English at Jamestown in 1607, followed by Maryland established at St. Mary’s City in 1634.

CATSLIDE COTTAGE, WILLIAMSBURG COLONIAL, PALLADIAN MANOR

Carolina Low Country

The Carolina Low Country and its tidewater coast were first settled in Charleston in 1670 by English planters with roots in the Caribbean islands.

TIDEWATER PLANTATION, CHARLESTON SINGLE HOUSE, SOUTHERN I-HOUSE

Florida Peninsula

The Spanish established North America’s first settlement in Florida at St. Augustine in 1565, as well as a mission chain linked through Tallahassee to Pensacola.

SPANISH COLONIAL CASA, ST. AUGUSTINE HOUSE

Gulf Coast

Settled by the French at New Orleans in 1718, the Gulf Coast attracted French and Spanish Creoles, Acadians from Canada, and free blacks from the Caribbean.

CREOLE COTTAGE, FRENCH COLONIAL PLANTATION, SHOTGUN HOUSE

Southwest Borderlands

Starting in the early 17th century the Spanish crisscrossed the Southwest borderlands founding presidios, missions, and pueblos from Arizona to Texas.

PUEBLO ADOBE, DOGTROT LOG CABIN, TEXAS ROCK HOUSE

Alta California

Alta California was the last Spanish frontier where a chain of twenty one missions was created from 1769-1823 along the coastline from San Diego to Sonoma.

SPANISH COLONIAL CASA, MONTEREY HOUSE

Make It Wrong?

What have we here?

Why, it's one of the 13 choices of new home designs for residents of the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. This project of Brad Pitt's states the following goal: “Because local cultural influences gave rise to the pre-Katrina architecture so emblematic of the area, preserving that identity remains vital in reclaiming the spirit of the neighborhood.” But it's mighty hard to find any attempt to preserve the area's architectural identity in this bizarre design from MVRDV, a firm from The Netherlands.

To view all 13 design offerings, visit the Make It Right website. Like so many other modernist attempts at low-income housing in the U.S., these houses look like sure-fire candidates for the wrecking ball in 20 years.

While the Make It Right project is certainly well-intended, the designs seem so out of touch with the intended recipients, even though community leaders were involved in the project. It's hard to imagine that the people who will be living in these houses would actually choose these designs over the vernacular styles — the shotguns, camelbacks, and creole cottages — that for 100 years have meant home to this culturally-rich, close-knit, vibrant community now in tatters.