Austin-based ClearSpace Homes has been around for several years, but recently I noticed the founder, Hayden Lindley, was working on some new designs. One of those is the 504-square-foot efficiency unit, pictured, which is finished on the outside with lap siding and cement board. Lindley is noodling this prefab design and others and wants to produce some new in-house plans with an accurate ballpark cost attached.
HMK Prefab Homes, in conjunction with Sustain Design Studios, debuted a new miniHome design called the CaliMini Solo 1 at the recent Dwell on Design conference in Los Angeles. The pictures and exterior staging don’t appear to do justice to the ever-popular miniHome, but the below video of the Solo provides a better impression, I think. This design, unlike the chassis-based designs we’ve seen from Sustain, is built to the modular code and includes a 616-square-foot interior, 140-square-foot loft, and a 140-square-foot deck.
I mentioned the launch of Connect:Homes recently and how the founders of this company hope to reinvent modular prefab with a unique approach. They took a big first step towards doing that with a prototype home on display at Dwell on Design in Los Angeles last weekend. The crowds, from everything I’ve heard, deeply enjoyed this warm, contemporary abode and the interior touch of style by Kishani Perera.
The original Mod.Fab installed on the grounds of Taliesin West will live again thanks to a new endeavor between Lindal Cedar Homes and both the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Thus, Mod.Fab will be available anywhere there’s a Lindal dealer, except the plan is also available in an additional exterior finish and in two larger sizes, 680 and 790 square feet.
When I first saw what Vine Saccento was doing with v100 Mod Box, I was impressed. And I’m still impressed as his prototype has been rolled out recently in the form of three prefab homes at the southern end of downtown Phoenix at 749 S. Second Street. One is rented by Tom Kelly, CEO of Schaller Anderson, and designer Saccento is living in another.
One thing you don’t want to do, if you’re interested in buying a prefab home, is pay some company to design something only to find out you can’t afford it in the first place. Or, as mentioned in a recent NY Times article about prefab kit homes, you definitely don’t want to get into the build without a clear vision of the total costs to complete the home. It’s mission critical that the prefab buying process be entirely transparent.
