Our latest book, Loblolly House, Elements of a New Architecture is now available in bookstores.

Princeton Architectural Press, ISBN 9781568987477
7.5 x 10 inches (19.1 x 25.4 cm), Hardcover, 176 pages
125 color illustrations; 46 b/w illustrations

Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture is a case study of an offsite fabricated single-family residence located on the Chesapeake Bay. Loblolly House was designed in three dimensions with Building Information Modeling (BIM) and demonstrates how off-site fabrication has the potential to redefine and streamline the architectural process, thereby reducing the cost, time and labor required to build.

The thousands of parts that make up a standard house were collapsed into a small number of integrated component assemblies, or “chunks,” for Loblolly House. These chunks were fabricated at Bensonwood Homes in New Hampshire and then attached to an industrial aluminum frame. The onsite assembly process took just six weeks.

Floor and ceiling cartridges are pre-wired to distribute electric and mechanical systems throughout the house, and are then plugged into utility manifolds in the mechanical room blocks. Exterior wall cartridges contain the structure, insulation, and windows and the house’s exterior contains an exterior wood rain screen. The west facade is an adjustable, double-layer system that has interior folding glass doors and exterior polycarbonate hangar doors that provide shading from the sun and storm protection. The façade can be completely opened to cool the house or closed to harness solar radiation for warmth. The design presumes that at the end of its life cycle, it will be disassembled instead of demolished.

Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture includes additional projects that further explore the methods used in Loblolly House, including Cellophane House, a four-story, full-scale prototype, on view at the Museum of Modern Art, and expandable residences for LivingHomes, a premier developer of off-site fabricated, sustainable homes.