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This really is an innovative way to think about building a house. There are no studs nor any nails in the frame, and the entire structure is made from plywood or OSB. You tell a computer program about the shape of the house, and the program designs the structure. Then a laser cutter cuts the […]
A different way to build a house #59 – Making the most of small apartment spaces
by Marshall Brain | September 27, 2010
You may recall the amazing “transformer apartment”:
A tiny apartment with moving walls becomes 24 different spaces
Now there is a new take on this idea using rolling walls on tracks, similar to the mechanism seen here…
A different way to build a house #58 – Virginia Tech’s LumenHaus
by Marshall Brain | September 13, 2010
Virginia Tech’s LumenHaus uses the sun’s light in several different ways. It provides light and passive heating inside the home, powers solar panels on the home and helps plants grow to recycle greywater…
A different way to build a house #57 – Using an RV as a home
by Marshall Brain | September 3, 2010
In the Great Recession, a large number of people have turned RVs into their homes, some willingly and some because they had no choice. Here is an example of a willing participant who has embraced the advantages of an RV home: He points out advantages like incredibly low utility bills and the low cost of […]
It turns out that there was another metal prefab house that pre-dated it. It was designed by the legendary Buckminster Fuller, and it came before he had invented the geodesic dome. It was called the Dymaxion House. It was a round aluminum and glass structure intended to be manufactured like an airplane to provide the perfect home. Although the Dymaxion house never made it into production, two prototypes were produced. One of them is at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan, as seen here…
Although you can’t buy Lustron homes today, they do represent a different way to build a house. Instead of being made of wood and sheetrock, Lustron homes are made of steel that was stamped in a factory, in much the same way that a car’s body parts are stamped. Then the homes were sold as 3,000-part kits for assembly by the homeowner, as described here…
In the United States, the “log cabin” is a nostalgic favorite. The early settlers and pioneers often built log cabins, and Abraham Lincoln was raised in one.
People still build them today. In the following video, you see how a log cabin is built the “old fashioned way”, starting with trees felled in the forest…
We may never see this type of housing in the developed world, but for the developing world this new type of housing would be a huge improvement over shacks of rusting metal and cardboard:
If you take a look at the following article, it discusses a number of innovative designs in the realm of flat-pack furniture:
More Creative Furniture for Cramped Urban Living: 20 Pieces of Ingenious ‘Flat Pack’ Furniture
At the bottom it takes flat-pack to its logical extreme by showing a photo of a flat pack house. Which brings up the obvious question: Has anyone ever tried selling a flat pack house? In fact they have…
If you take a look at How House Construction Works, you can see the standard building techniques used to build a house in the United States.
What if you would like to build a house for much less money, using natural materials that have less impact on the environment? You can see an example of these building practices in this video…
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