the living home

ray kappe, founder of sci-arc (southern california institute of architecture), has designed this behemoth prefab called the living home, or as inhabitat refers to it as, “the cadillac of prefab homes.” earning a leed platinum award for scoring 91 out of a possible 108 points, this prefab is pretty sustainable. the materials used in the living home are intended to keep indoor air fresh (ie, not off-gas harmful contaminants) and the construction processes use only environmentally sustainable materials and systems. naturally, as one can tell from the image above this house resembles a prefab in no way. this means that construction components have been assembled off-site and shipped to site for construction in a kit of parts sort of manner as opposed to some of the other prefabs we’ve discussed. the downside is that this method still produces construction waste as a result of assembly (of course, far less than non-prefab), the upside is that it looks like any architecturally designed house on the block and not a warehouse assembled box (akin to this clean aesthetic). regardless, the living home is quite striking and certainly, according to the numbers and info on the living home website, very sustainable and at $180-$250 a square foot is seems reasonably priced (though certainly not cheap).