Pre-fab homes in the UK

The Guardian recently published an article about a new push for affordable prefabricated housing in the UK.

As the article states, though, "The term prefab has been shunned by the new housebuilders. The new phrase has instead been described as “modular construction”.

Developers have been promising homes built to higher standards than those using traditional methods. They also claim energy bills would be half that of a conventional home due to better insulation."

The record for constructing a house onsite is apparently 36 hours, although it typically takes a few days. Any help towards the housing shortage in the UK would be welcomed!

Dalston Works

I read recently about the completion of the world's largest cross-laminated timber (CLT) building in Hackney, east London. Since I've posted many times in this blog about wooden skyscrapers, I had to go have a look.

From the outside, the Dalston Works don't look any different than other new buildings in the area; they have a brick facade and steel balconies.

But underneath, they're solid wood, which brought a number of advantages. Because the site is above two major tunnel projects, the weight savings of a wooden building (opposed to  concrete) made the foundation work much simpler and allowed the building to be taller.

The environmental impact of building with wood is also significant. The time it took to work on site was shortened, and the wood itself stores carbon, as opposed to the carbon impact of concrete. It also helps that Hackney council has a "timber-first" policy for new buildings in the era.

Further information is on the architect's website and also the builder's. Their pictures are a lot better than mine too!

3-D printed homes

I've posted a lot over the years about new types of building techniques. The most recent one is the idea of using a giant 3-D printer to build a house out of concrete.

A US company, ICON, is pitching their first design as a way to provide safe housing in the third world. The video above shows their first house being 'printed'. I can see this technique being developed over the years into much more sophisticated designs.

A prefab home in Uruguay

I found an article in Dwell about a cool prefab house in the wilds of Uruguay.

It is designed by MAPA architects in Montevideo. Their website shares lots of great photos of the house and its construction. It's well worth a look!

More wooden skyscrapers

Thanks to the people at 99pi.org, I found an interesting article about wooden skyscrapers, one of my favorite topics. The video above details a building recently completed in British Columbia.

Tall buildings made of laminated wood can be lighter, stronger, and more fire-resistant than steel. They're also much friendlier on the environment. A win all around!

There handsome building on the left is from a design proposed for a design competition in Stockholm, a 34 story mix-used tower made of tower made of the same wood as our little stuga.

Even taller ones have been proposed for London, and the home of the skyscraper, Chicago itself.

I'm sure we will see more and more buildings like these in the near future. Their advantages are too many to ignore!

Stair safety

I don't have too many projects to work on out at the house any more! I've been ticking them off one by one over the years.

One thing that I've been thinking about recently is the stairs out to our deck. Janne built me broad stairs all those years ago. But over time, the wood has become weathered and grey. This reduces the visibility of each step.

The stairs look wonderfully silvery in this photo, but they are hard to tell apart, especially in flat light. Wearing bifocals (as Sooz and I do these days) also add to the problem of depth perception.

The easiest solution is to add some tread tape to the edge of the stairs. That would provide both visual and tactile feedback about the edge of each step.

Even my ridiculously simple drawing of three black lines on the second photo shows how much more contrast is visible on those stairs.


There is a lot of science behind stair safety. It is clear that being able to clearly see and feel the edge of each step is helpful in reducing slips and falls.

I am going to try out tread tape this spring when we're out to the house next. I think I can do it in a way that looks decent. My main concern is such tape surviving the winter weather, but we'll have to experiment with that. I will report back more fully in a few months.

A 3D printed house?

The New York Times ran an article recently about technology that can 'print' a building, eventually without human intervention.

Buildings made in a simple and modular way should be able to increase the options for affordable housing in many parts of the world. In addition, homes that could be easily taken apart and reassembled elsewhere would be very useful in dealing with climate and demographic changes.

The video above is another type of a 'printed' house, this time in China. They aren't very pretty, but they are simple and cheap to build, although the use of concrete is problematic for the global environment.

Many new technologies and methods are being tested in the coming years. It will be interesting to see which of them take hold!

Wooden Skyscrapers

I've posted before about the growing trend of wooden buildings being constructed with engineered wood like our little stuga. The Economist has a recent article about even taller structures being planned.

One of the most attractive things about a wooden skyscraper is its sustainability. Concrete and steel emit a significant amount of global CO², by some estimates over 5% of the annual total.

Wood, on the other hand, captures carbon dioxide, and comes from sustainable sources. When cared for properly, a wooden building can last as long- or longer- than a more modern structure.

The photo is of a proposed tower for central Stockholm, the "Tratoppen" (treetop in Swedish).

Who knows if anything like this will ever be built, but it is a lovely idea.

Makita Batteries

I bought a nice cordless Makita drill with a pair of 18V Lithium batteries almost 6 years ago. Since then, I've added a cordless saw, sander, and planer to the system. I have been very happy with all of my tools. They're clearly well made, and I've had full use out of them every summer.

I had a bit of a disappointment on my last visit, however. Both of my batteries would no longer charge. I was not happy, seeing how expensive they are! But after talking to Olle and Janne, it seems that I was perhaps uncharitable. They've lasted over 5 years, and my pattern of using them a lot for short times and then setting for a long time in cold weather is hard on a rechargeable battery.

Substitutes for the original Makita batteries are available from many different suppliers at a much lower cost. On the other hand, if my battery fails, I'm totally without a power tool. So I compromised and bought one official battery and one aftermarket model.

I'll do my best to take better care of them in the future. I will also report how well the aftermarket battery holds up. I could save a lot of money over the years!

The hus is getting older

We were talking with Marcia and Rutger about how long it has been since we built our house. We were all a bit surprised to realise this summer would be eight years since the house went up. It is amazing how quickly time flies. In many ways, it seems like yesterday. But then, I look at old pictures and we can see how much has changed.

I bring this up because this realisation has changed our thinking a bit. We took a lot of stuff out to the house in the first couple of years that we haven’t used. I’ve not wanted to throw anything away because of the effort of carrying anything out to the house.

This spring, though, both Sooz and I had a bit of a clean-up and earmarked a lot of stuff to get rid of. If I haven’t used it in a few years, I don’t need it! We’re a lot more organised and knowledgeable these days so we don’t need to hang onto stuff “just in case”. I don't want our little summer house to start filling up with junk like my regular house!

The other thing about the passing years is that we’re starting to see a need for maintenance and upgrades. Weatherstripping is becoming brittle, our door and window trim needs a new coat, our TV set is looking very dated. Up until now, we’ve been building and adding to the house. 

I expect we will be moving from constructing our house to maintaining it over the next few years. It may not be as much fun, but it’ll keep me busy, which is the important thing...

The Longbranch Cabin

Grant sent me this one- it's a cabin on Puget Sound in Washington state. What makes this one a little different is that it's been added to, bit by bit, since it was first built in 1959.

It's a testament to the skill of the architect, Jim Olson, that the house stays a unified whole after all those years, and not a mishmash of different styles.

Many of the houses on Aspö share this expansionist design.

Olle is always working on a new project at his house: a new deck, a sauna, guest houses. Our own house is different seven years later: the guest house redesigned, the addition of the shed, the walkway between houses, and most recently, the big deck. I admire the way this cabin has managed to add on so many new parts, but still maintain its cool look.

Letter from Värmdö Kommun

I received a multi-page letter earlier this week from the local government on Värmdö. It alarmed me a bit, so I asked my friend Anette to take a quick look for me before I settled down for a full translation. I also sent a copy to Willie, too. They both told me the letter had to do with our waste water tank and the kommun wanted more information about it.

It appeared that I had needed to send a statement back to the kommun after our grey water system was installed to show it was done according to the rules. I had not done that, and to make matters worse, I never responded to letters they sent me earlier in the year (because I never received them, of course.)

So they sent someone out to take a look. They found  I was missing an air pipe at the end of the trench to oxygenate the bacteria, and they were also unable to tell much about the installation since it had grown over the past five years. They also charged me a fee of 4500kr for the cost of their visit.

I sent a copy of the letter to both Anders (our bathroom builders) and Janne for their feedback. Janne and I talked. He gave me good information about the trench he had dug, and the preparations completed for the water system. I will talk to Anders again soon about his work on the water, and about adding an air pipe.

The most important conversation I had was with Camilla at Värmdö Kommun. She was very kind in explaining everything to me in English, and also agreed to waive the visiting fee, since I had obviously never received any of her previous correspondence. I'll get the installation information together, and be back to her, although I may just have Janne and/or Anders speak with her directly. I'll install the air pipe this summer.

So... a bit of a complication, but nothing big, and easily fixable. I'm especially happy to report that he people at Värmdö were very nice to a slightly befuddled, but well-meaning Texan over the phone.

Viktor's new house

I had posted almost exactly four years ago about out neighbor Viktor, who was building an X-House much like ours in the center of the island.

Viktor finished the house and it is beautiful. However, he's recently acquired land closer to the water, and sold his house last year. Now he's in the process of building a new pre-fabricated house, but not an X-House this time. He has chosen a system from Leva, who are from the island of Gotland. An example is in the photo to the left.

They are much like X-House, with long beams of pre-cut glue-laminated wood. Viktor told me his house will be 95 square meters, which is about a third larger than ours. I visited his building site, and it looked huge!

His helicopter delivery was indeed yesterday. Everything—50 ton's worth—was loaded on one of the big goods boats and brought to the island at a northern dock. Viktor used a helicopter (as we did) to ferry everything over. He told me it took 60 trips by the 'copter to move it all.

Janne, Ronnie and I supervised the work yesterday. Viktor had a big crew who seemed to know what they were doing, so we were able to leave after a couple of hours.

Janne and I hung out in the afternoon, and in the evening, he made spaghetti, which was delicious.

This morning, Janne left back for Stockholm, and I visited Viktor again. He has quite the stack of building materials spread all over!

I have a bunch of photos of all this on the May photo page. I also am experimenting with tags on Flickr, so to see every photo I've associated with Viktor, click this link. There will be photo updates to both pages, I promise.

The iT Cabin

I've recently found a fantastic prefab house system from Tallman Koch, an architecture firm in Los Angeles.

They have developed a building system which allows quick on-site assembly of steel panels with no need for heavy machinery. The structure is built around standard sizes of cabinets, windows, etc. This provides flexibility and cost efficiency.

Pictured above is their cabin, which reminds me of our own little stuga in a way, especially in this photo to the right. Fuller-size houses are also available.

The website is full of information about their buildings and the construction process. Of course, they are ecologically friendly, too, with various innovations in solar energy, passive heating/cooling, and water reclamation available.

They also remind me of the Case Study homes built a half-century ago in Southern California: efficient, simple, open, steel and glass structures. I like these very much!

Not just a sliding roof, but a sliding house

Sooz sent me this one, a house in the Suffolk countryside.

Designed by the UK firm dRMM, the house is three buildings, linked together by a 20-ton sliding structure.

The roof/walls can be moved along hidden tracks to change the living experience significantly.

With a click of a button, the house changes from a greenhouse to a barn! It's a brilliant idea.

The Ábaton modular home

I'm a sucker for small, prefab homes. This one, the ÁPH80 Portable Home from the Spanish firm Ábaton, is nifty.

It's a high-spec, all-in-one unit that can be plunked down most anywhere.

The outside is covered in concrete board, designed so it can be closed up tight. Perfect for a winter climate!

The photos are sumptuous, and well worth a click through.

Plyscrapers

Courtesy of the nice people at Dwell once again is a slide show on one of my favourite subjects: plyscrapers.

There's a growing trend of constructing larger buildings from wood, instead of the much more common concrete and steel. The environmental impact of concrete is significant; it's estimated that 5% of global carbon emissions are from the cement industry alone.

New technologies, such as cross-laminated timber, allow sustainably grown wood to be made into building elements suitable for tall buildings. The wood used in a 20 story building would capture about 3000 tons of carbon. In contrast, a typical concrete structure would expend around 1300 tons. That's a big swing!

Such tall building has so far been outside of the USA. The Guardian has a great report on big timber structures going up in Canada and New Zealand, for example.

Sweden is also involved, of course. Radio Sweden recently covered the growth in tall timber construction. PM Stefan Löfven visited wood apartment buildings in Sundbyberg just last week. A quarter of all new construction in the city of Växjö is in timber, with the intent to double that in five years. The fact almost all of the wood used comes from sustainable Swedish forests is a bonus.

Things are moving in America, too. The US Government has announced a Tall Wood Building Competition. The time for submissions has recently closed, and winners will be announced in the coming months. I'll be sure to report back here on the contest.

A new type of artificial light

Thanks to the Urbanist website, I've read about a new type of artificial light. CoeLux has developed a LED-based skylight that is indistinguishable from sunlight. The secret is mimicking, for the first time, the atmospheric processes that make the sky blue.

This video centers on bringing sunlight to interiors and basements of large buildings. Just as the elevator allowed skyscrapers to become taller, an artificial sunlight could allow buildings to be designed differently, with more use of basements and interior rooms lit this way.

I think there's another application: for Scandinavians living through long, dark, cloudy winters. It would be a godsend to flip a switch and have a sunny skylight in the middle of January!

UPDATE: Wired magazine now has a good article on the CoeLux as well.

Window over the door?

One thing we've noticed in our house, especially during our visits in the spring and fall, is that it can get fairly dark inside. We get all sorts of light from the glassed-in front of the house, for sure. Inside, though, by the front door and our garderobes, it's much darker.

I've installed a light over the front door, of course. Another idea would be to have a window in that space.

A high window, one above eye level, is referred to as a "clerestory" window. They are designed to bring light, and sometimes ventilation, into a room without providing a view or compromising privacy.

Viktor has such a window on his x-house. I found a photo and added a helpful arrow to point it out.

We could add a window like this pretty easily. I talked to both Stefan and Willie; it's a straightforward matter of taking a chain saw to cut out a rectangle and fitting a simple non-opening window. It wouldn't impact the integrity of the house, although Sooz is leery of cutting any holes. I've added an exceedingly crude photo illustration of where such a window might go, complete with another yellow arrow.

Another option is to have a window in the door. In fact, Olle has a spare window, which he's given me.

It's a proper door window; triple-glazed and it weighs a ton! I'm holding it up in the photos to give an idea of where it might go.

Olle says putting it in the door is simple, and of course I trust him. Cutting a hole in the door instead of the house would be simpler, and wouldn't be a permanent change either.

One drawback of a door window is that it might reduce our privacy a bit. I could install a shade or curtain of some sort, but I'm not too sure how that might work. 

Either way, it'll me a nice project to delve into later this year!

Deck Railings

Sooz and I have been discussing our new deck lately. Mostly we talk about how much we love it!

But we are worried a bit about its height. From the back corner, it's a pretty decent drop to the rocks below. I posted a long time ago about having a railing of some sort along the front of the house, but we never got around to it. (Frankly, our solution to having a deck that was a bit too narrow was to instead build a nice big one.)

I really don't like the idea of a permanent railing along the deck. I fear it would disrupt the flow of the house. But a possible solution was right under our noses. We started to notice a number of rope railings in different places, both on Aspö and at the dock in Stavsnäs:

I like the idea of using a pole-and-rope railing. It would be easy for me to do, and would fit in with the vernacular on the island. Ideally, I'd like to be able to remove the railing easily. We could put it up for drunken parties, and take it away in the winter!

A bit of googling took me to a great website that sells all sorts of Kee Klamps, which are specialists in pipe railings.

I don't want a full railing, of course, but a half-dozen of these pipe holders mounted on the outside of the deck would do the trick. I could pick up a length of pipe at Bauhaus, choose a coil of interesting rope, and—presto! An attractive, functional, and removable railing.

Using my childishly poor photoshop skills, I made a drawing of what such a railing might look like:

My plan for our trip in the spring is to buy the fittings and put them in my suitcase. We'll stop at Bauhaus for some pipe and rope to haul on the bus out to Stavsnäs. I plan to install the deck lights as well. I'll try to line the lights up with the poles and have a nice geometric installation!