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