Back in February 2008, Ideabox exhibited their Confluence Modern design at the Portland Home & Garden Show.  The images above and below are of the Confluence Modern at this show, with Design Within Reach furnishings and Nick Williams / Sycamore Canyon landscaping.  Confluence Modern, like the other Ideabox designs, is built to be just the right size.  It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom home that maximizes all of its 840 square feet.  And if you're not familiar with Ideabox (we mentioned them way back in August last year), they strive to build smart, efficient, and modern homes.  Energy Star everything.  Use less of everything and when used, using locally sourced, natural, and renewable materials. 

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If you’ve been listening to the chatter on prefab and thought: "What’s the big deal with prefab homes?" or "Why would anyone ever want to own a prefab?", now’s your chance to find out.  In his most recent update from A Prefab Project, Chris dropped a link to his shiny new website for Lost River Modern, a prefab cabin in Lost River, West Virginia.  And as you can tell from the images on the new website, Lost River Modern is quite incredible to look at.  Designed by Resolution: 4 Architecture, creators of the original Dwell Home, Lost River Modern is the first and only res4 home available for guests.  You can (and probably should) rent the place and completely chill out.  I see some slots are already filled up, so if you’re interested in testing the prefab waters on the East Coast, you better get on it quick. 

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About ten years ago, I worked at UPS in their "boneyard" — a place where all the pallets were unloaded and strewn in huge heaps on an asphalt parking lot.  We’d neatly stack the pallets, place them in a trailer, and UPS would get rid of them, netting about $0.25 per pallet saved.  At the time, I didn’t realize the amount of pallets in circulation around the globe.  It’s estimated that there are about 2 BILLION ordinary unit load pallets in circulation globally, and about two-thirds of these are only used once.  It’s further estimated that U.S. companies throw away roughly 4 billion board feet of wood pallets every year.  Pretty crazy, I know. 

So HDR Architecture came up with Unit Load_Redux, a temporary exhibition intended as a probe for sustainable living through the redux of pallets and the use of bicycle energy.

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HOM Escape in Style made its debut at Dwell on Design this weekend and drew a considerable crowd.  Apartment Therapy said HOM was their favorite home on display, and Curbed liked its interior design.  Of the three models that HOM plans for production, the (smaller) 1000 sf design was exhibited throughout the weekend in LA.  HOM designs cost in the $200 psf range, which calculates to approximately $200,000 for a 1000 sf house.

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The fulcrum of the green building revolution, I think, is conservation and living happily with less.  It’ll be interesting to see how we get there, to see if we can live lighter.  In the meantime, I like to monitor small projects to see what piques the interest of crowds.  Lately Abōd® has been getting some quality attention.  Abōd was honored by the AIA this year with a Small Project Award.  The AIA explained the concept: "The design goal was to develop a breakthrough in value-engineered lowest cost housing with an extensive array of add-on options to personalize each home. The resulting design incorporating the Catenary arch is simple and structurally sound but also aesthetically pleasing and can be built by 4 people in just one day with only a screwdriver and an awl."

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