Madrid-based architectural studio CSO Arquitectura teamed up with prefab construction specialists Torsan to create SAVMS, a modular housing system designed to maximize adaptability while minimizing ecological footprint. The flexibility of the system allows customers to choose a house of their own design, while the prefabricated approach allows costs to be kept more or less fixed.
According to CSO, both design, manufacturing and construction are each remarkably speedy. Once the customer has chosen their preferred layout (selected from 10 or so standard units), and selected their preferred finishes, CSO produces the detailed drawings required for manufacture – a process that takes about a week.
The steel frame structure and paneling is manufactured and pre-assembled in the factory over three days, and finally the pieces are put together on site in the space of another week. If these times are accurate, you could conceivably be turning your key in the front door of a SAVMS home within three weeks of deciding you want one.
As for the eco-design features, Arch Daily reports that the system is designed for natural cross-ventilation, can accommodate rainwater harvesting as well as both photovoltaic and thermal solar systems. SAVMS stands for Sistema Abierto de Viviendas Modulares Sostenibles, which roughly translates as Open Sustainable Modular Housing System.
CSO says that the cost of SAVMS house starts at €700/m2 (about $900/m2 or $85/ft2), and is presumably determined by choices of finish and other extras. Exterior facade finishes (which can be mixed and matched) include porcelain, corrugated galvanized steel, wood and VIROC. However, once the spec is locked, CSO claims the price is fixed.
Sources: CSO Arquitectura, Arch Daily
Of course you cant get insurance for them but you can fix anything that might go wrong with them with a bag of nails and a few packets of pollyfiller.
If he is worried about UK building regulations, he should direct his comments to his local planning authority or his local political parties, and not to Gizmag.
"A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated steel design during World War I, a variant of which (the Quonset hut) was used extensively during World War II."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_hut
Nor do I understand why they must cost so much. A 1500sq' house shouldn't cost more than $40k for parts and labor. I've been doing them for far less. Just finishing a 12'x12' studio cabin for under $2k including labor.
I never new those were called Nessen huts as I've always known them as Quanset huts. They are still available under metal buildings in pop Sci and other magazines and usually in local weekly ad flyers.
Most people want a house that looks like, well, a house. They want houses that at least from the outside resemble some common and traditional style in their culture.
Try to go outside the local norms and there's usually resistance of some sort.
That's why the most successful prefabricated housing is the double and triple wide manufactured home. Built on a steel frame and moved to the site on temporarily installed axles. Been done like that for a long time and in the past 30 or so years finished out to look the same as a site built house.
Recently I've seen ones being moved on large flatbed trucks, with no steel frame under the house. They're carefully moved off onto a foundation much like for a site built house.
If you want to be successful in panelized prefab housing you need to make your product look like a *house*, not a mashup of Wright's and Eames' worst nightmares and do it for considerably less than the big chunks of manufactured homes rolling down the highways.