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Amazon has made clear that it wants to own the smart home space. Now the company's going a step further, taking a stake in a start-up that's building actual homes.
On Tuesday, Amazon said its Alexa Fund invested in Plant Prefab, a Southern California company that says it uses sustainable construction processes and materials to build prefabricated custom single- and multifamily houses. The start-up is aiming to use automation to build homes faster and bring down costs.
— CNBC
With this recent investment in eco-friendly prefabricated home factory Plant Prefab, Amazon uses its mighty financial leverage and dominance in the market for voice-controlled connected devices to make the brand just as synonymous with smart homes as it already is with online retail. Plant... View full entry
The Antepavilion program, a joint venture between the Architecture Foundation and the Arthouse Foundation, launched an international competition to design a £25,000 pop-up rooftop at Columbia and Brunswick Wharf in Hackney, north-east London. The goal was to invite architects, artists and... View full entry
Known as “S Houses,” these prefab structures going up here in Ba Vi, about 30 miles from Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, are iterations of a prototype that Mr. Nghia has been honing since about 2013. [...]
But Mr. Nghia says that his plan is to mass-manufacture this portable, easy-to-assemble design for people in slums, remote areas or refugee camps around the world, beginning later this year, all for the starting price — $1,500 — of about two iPhones.
— New York Times
The NYT takes a closer look at the extremely affordable S House prefab system currently going up by the dozens in Vietnam, with a keen eye on the global super-low-cost market. Designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects, a design studio with offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, S House was exhibited... View full entry
The prospect of Brexit choking off the supply of EU workers is reshaping Britain's homebuilding industry, with big companies increasingly looking to factory-manufacture houses in sections that can be slotted together on-site with minimal labour.
Many of Britain's leading housebuilders, including Berkeley, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon and Your Housing, told Reuters they were either planning new developments of prefabricated homes or considering doing so.
— Reuters
"You can almost feel the fear among the contractors and housebuilders where they've been surviving on labor from outside the country," says Mark Stevenson, a managing director of construction supplier Kingspan. "We're being pulled in a direction that customers want us to go in, from more work... View full entry
The six planned factories will use British light gauge steel framing to produce panelised components for residential developments that are “at least 75% off-grid” thanks to solar power and energy efficient design, renewables developer Welink said in announcing the joint venture today (19 December). [...]
The UK government greeted the news enthusiastically, as it tries to lure innovative entrants to the UK housing market to help it deliver its objective of 1 million new homes by 2020.
— globalconstructionreview.com
More pre-fab on Archinect:SHoP-designed Brooklyn tower – now world's tallest modular building – opens its doorsJean Nouvel's prefab 'Simple' home can be reconfigured from the inside outTo solve a housing crisis, invest more in modular constructionA Parisian architect's plan to solve housing... View full entry
