plant prefab | GIZMODO.cz

Plant Prefab, a sustainable home construction company committed to prefabricated buildings, launched its patented Plant Building System, allowing for home construction that produces less waste and requires little to no land alteration.

Contributing to nearly 40% of the planet’s carbon greenhouse emissions, home-building generally involves the excessive use of resources, construction waste, and land alterations. As the world moves toward environmental consciousness, various industries are following suit.

Designer: Plant Prefab

In direct response to the world’s cities facing rapid urbanization and large-scale construction projects, Plant Prefab is a sustainable building company that constructs prefabricated homes from a patented Plant Building System.

With the demand for residential homes increasing by the day, more and more architects are opting for prefabricated building methods. Prefabricated building methods, just like Plant Prefab’s Plant Building System, allow architects to construct homes during circumstances that otherwise would not allow for construction to take place.

Explaining this in regard to a custom single-family home designed by the Brown Studio, Plant Prefab says, “Plant prefabricated the home during the late fall and early winter when on-site construction would have been nearly impossible.”

In addition to being able to construct a home during colder seasons, the construction process of prefabricated homes is contained within off-site factories, requiring fewer skilled laborers and producing far less waste from shipping and handling.

Amounting to a construction process that’s 20% to 50% faster than conventional building methods, Plant Prefab’s patented system takes on a hybrid, modular model for home building. Leaning on a modular building system, the method is adaptive by design. As the construction process continues, endless configurations can be brainstormed so that adjustments can be made as needed.

While Plant Prefab is currently committed to custom builds, the company hopes to produce around 900,000square feet of living space per year, which would amount to approximately 800 units of varying sizes. Formed as a solution to combat the impending housing crisis, Plant Prefab’s Plant Building System hopes to join its focus from single and multi-family units with larger-scale developments, like student-based and affordable housing.

The post Plant Prefab’s patented home building system uses sustainable construction methods to design affordable housing first appeared on Yanko Design.

Plant Prefab, a California-based architecture firm that prefabricates sustainable homes, recently collaborated with Koto, a UK-based studio that designs modular homes, to build two residences called LivingHomes. Devised to meet both LEED Platinum and net-zero standards, the homes were also designed and built on some Scandinavian design principles: minimalism and biophilia. Biophilia is the hypothetical human tendency to interact with nature. Biophilic design, which could be inherently minimalist, interprets that human tendency for both interior and exterior spaces, producing a design concept used to increase the connectivity between a building’s residents and the natural world. In order to meet sustainability standards that match Plant Prefab’s mission statement, Koto looked toward Scandinavian design standards. Together they created two LivingHomes, constructed with recycled building materials with respect to the natural world, equipped with ultra-efficient heating and cooling systems, smart energy monitoring, LED lighting, recycled insulation and drywall, and low-flow water fixtures.

The first home, Yksi, is a cantilevered, two-bedroom residence that employs biophilic design principles through ample deck space and large windows with unobstructed views of natural surroundings. On the first floor of Yksi, which means ‘first’ in Finnish, there are two bedrooms, a bathroom, an office space, and a utility closet. The bedrooms are located on opposite ends of Yksi’s first floor, giving the feel of separate wings for the home’s residents, which enhances the design team’s devotion to Scandinavian design, conveying a sense of quiet luxury. Each bedroom comes with windows that practically take up an entire facade of the two-floor structure. Moving up to the second floor, Yksi is equipped with an open-plan kitchen for excellent cross-ventilation, a dining area, and two separate, outdoor deck areas for easy access to the open air.

The second home, which is named after the Finnish word for ‘courtyard,’ Piha offers four bedrooms and three bedrooms, two courtyards and a deck, and a vast open living space that forms the heart of the home. On the first floor, the open living space incorporates clever use of walls to delineate distinct rooms such as the kitchen and snug, a hideaway just off the main living area. Punctuating the open living area are two courtyards that offer sweeping views of nature and a deck that can be accessed through double-glass sliding doors. Residents can also find two of the four bedrooms on the first floor, once again on opposite ends for prime privacy and quiet, that are separated by a staircase. Following the staircase up to the second floor, residents will find two more bedrooms, one being the master bedroom, complete with an en-suite bath, marked with massive windows for endless views.

Designers: Plant Prefab x Koto