Fabricating the Modern Dwelling: MOMA Unveils Home Delivery
July 17 2008 / by Antonio Manfredi
Category: The Home Year: 2008 Rating: 12 Hot
The Metropolitan Museum of Art unveils an exhibition that shows
the technological innovation behind the pre-fabricated home. These
made to order homes may represent the homes of the future.
Highlighting the growing innovation in pre-fab homes, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has unveiled an exhibit highlighting the technological innovation behind the pre-fab home and how designers are responding to global trends.
Unveiled at the show will be a full scale prototype of the System 3, a design by Architects Oskar Kaufman and Albert Ruf. After years of pursuing the optimum in high quality low cost design, the System 3 is the pinnacle of austere elegance. Looking like a direct cousin of a shipping container the System 3 abandones traditional notions of architectural design. The truly intersting aspect of it’s design however is it’s ability to be “stacked”, taking multiple units and creating anything from hotels to office towers and luxury villas. (cont.)
At a cost of $130,000, including site prep, the System 3 is designed to be a value. By combining the flexibility of connecting multiple cubes together, the System 3 may represent a fast and affordable way to build small homes, offices, and hotels in the future. By relying on a centralized production line in Austria, pre-fab homes like the System 3 will also be able to make the best use of new technology systems, and will be able to respond to changing needs globally much more rapidly.
The question remains whether or not pre-fab designs will represent the future of the global housing market, built to a consumers specs and delivered to their address with a button click.
Comment Thread (3 Responses)
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I grew up in a Buckminster Fuller dome. I love alternative design, innovation, and amazing architecture. I used to think suburbia was bad enough with their identical houses (I always wondered how many people come home drunk and go to the wrong house), but imagining a city full of boxes, stacked boxes nonetheless, just makes me want to yak. Great idea and very beautiful/simplistic, but make a zillion of them and they’re just modern trailer homes.
Posted by: John Heylin July 18, 2008
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I really couldn’t agree more with the jheylin. If the future is just a bunch of canned homes in place of unique creations, count me out. Too much sameness = lack of soul.
Posted by: Mielle Sullivan July 18, 2008
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Won’t matter – we can always plug ourselves into VR and have the houses of our dreams anyway.
Posted by: gremlinn July 19, 2008
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