May 14, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Pre-fab-ulous

by Carol Blitzer

Sleek, modern, energy-efficient and relatively inexpensive new housing in the Bay Area? Are we dreaming?

Glidehouse, a pre-fab house available in four sizes and deliverable in modules, will be on display at Sunset's Celebration Weekend beginning this Saturday. More than 20,000 visitors are expected to check out Sunset's ideas -- from table settings to paint palettes to travel photography tips -- during two days of demonstrations on home décor, travel and cooking.

A real draw this year is the life-size, pre-fab house erected in the parking lot behind Sunset. The home, which was ordered for a client in Washington, was trucked down from the manufacturer in Canada, and put together in just a few days. The pre-fab house arrives pre-wired and pre-plumbed, as well as pre-finished, including flooring, cabinetry and counter tops.

Designed by Michelle Kaufmann, a Sausalito architect who worked with Frank O. Gehry (known for his design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain), the Glidehouse incorporates modern design with energy-efficient, green building materials. The flooring is made from a renewable source -- bamboo. Kitchen and bath counter tops are cast concrete, made from recycled ash and paper.

It even includes some edgy designs, such as the stainless-steel bowl sinks in the bathroom or the stainless-steel prep "cocktail-party" sink in the kitchen -- perfect for drying lettuce or filling with ice and cooling beer and wine.

Kaufmann came up with the idea while pondering how to build an affordable house for herself. After a "pretty painful six months" of looking, she and her new husband decided to build a "simple, modern, green, clean home." Once underway, friends would drop by the construction site and say, "gee, we'd like one of these."

So Kaufmann began exploring the possibility of mass production. "Ninety-nine percent of the factories said 'why would we do that house when we already have a faux chateau?'" she said. Eventually, she found two factories in Canada -- and is negotiating with a third in California -- willing to make her design, which she called Glidehouse. The house is named for the wooden doors that glide on tracks in front of the large sliding glass doors that run along one side of the house.

The gliders fill multiple functions -- they both shade the house and provide security at night when windows can be left open.

The basic plan follows green building design principles, Kaufmann said, beginning with shallow rooms with operable windows on both sides for maximum cross-ventilation. "People can control temperature in a different way than by turning on a heating or cooling system," she said.

The storage bar on the far side of the house has a reflective surface that maximizes indirect lighting, she added.

The proprietary insulation (iconene) is sprayed into the walls, where it expands and leaves no air gaps. Kaufmann compares the heating and cooling recovery system -- where a percentage of the heated air is put back into the forced-air system -- to running a hybrid car.

Cost for the pre-fab house is about $110-120/square foot, about half what it would cost to build it in the Bay Area. According to Peter Whiteley, a senior writer for Sunset's home section, that's because the house is built in a factory on an assembly line. The walls can be framed, wallboard added on one side, flipped over, wired, then insulated before the wallboard is applied to the other side -- all before turning them vertically.

Mass production means there's little waste, Kaufmann said, adding that factories also have economies of scale (they can build 15 houses at a time) and bulk buying and storing of materials. Labor costs are significantly lower outside the Bay Area as well.

There's also the "least amount of wear and tear on the site," she added.

Although the houses are built in a factory, owners have customizing options, including three colors of bamboo and concrete counter tops, exterior materials (pre-rusted, cor-ten steel or aluminum-alloy Galvalume) or location of the storage bar and size of the home. The models come in four sizes, ranging from a one-bedroom, 672-square-foot plan, to a four-bedroom, courtyard version at 2,016 square feet. Kaufmann is working on designs for a two-story home, for both suburban and urban (live/work) settings.

The last step -- "button-up work" -- takes about two weeks, and includes attaching the modules, hooking up utilities, dropping in appliances and any finish painting.

Kaufmann said the modular house is actually built stronger than her own home. "It's built just like site-built, with 2x6 wall framing, 2x10 floor and roof framing, but because it has to be shipped, it has to be more structurally sound," she said, adding that all the joints are glued, as well as screwed or nailed. "It's really a strong house. You can feel it when you walk in."

Kaufmann's design tends to blur the exterior and interior spaces. "Even if you don't use the exterior space," she said, "visually it feels like the house is much larger."

That indoor/outdoor feel makes Glidehouse a good "blend of ideals with Sunset," she said.

"I originally thought people would be thinking about them as second homes, " but most people are asking about primary residences, Kaufmann said. She's been fielding between 20 and 60 e-mails a day from people interested in Glidehouse.

Kaufmann's own house, which wasn't built in a factory, is taking six months to construct. The model on display at Sunset took less than a month, she said, adding "It's the same house."

Assistant editor Carol Blitzer can be reached at cblitzer@paweekly.com.
What: Sunset Celebration Weekend When: Saturday, May 15, and Sunday, May 16, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Where: Sunset, 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park (free parking at Sun Microsystems, 1601 Willow Road, with free bus to Sunset -- $1 off admission) Tickets: General admission, $10; Seniors (60+) $8; Children (12 and under) free Info: Call (800) 786-7375 or visit sunset.com/cw; for information on the Glidehouse, visit www.livemodern.com or www.glidehouse.com or e-mail Michelle Kaufmann at info@mkarchitecture.com.

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