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A net-zero prefab home design is set to reinvigorate a down-at-the-heels Los Angeles neighborhood.
In 2011, Restore Neighborhoods Los Angeles (RNLA), a nonprofit that invests in housing, sent out a request for affordable, sustainable designs for lots in the city’s South Central area. “We very much want to introduce new design ideas and new technologies to low- and moderate-income districts,” explains John Perfitt, executive director. “Good design and new construction methods can, over time, have a very positive influence in restoring neighborhoods.”
After whittling down the field from nine proposals, they selected a net-zero prefab design submitted by Habitat for Humanity and Minarc, a Santa Monica–based architecture firm known for its innovative, energy-efficient kit houses. Thanks to a streamlined, waste-free construction method and affordable materials, like cement board cladding and Cradle to Cradle–certified panels, the firm’s three 1,200-square-foot homes came in at the requisite $150 per square foot—including foundation, trans- portation of the modular components, and rooftop solar panels that offset 95 percent of the structures’ energy demands...
Via Lauren Moss
