#ayeshamehrotra

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Blu Homes Inc is building modern, durable, eco-friendly prefabricated homes around the country and changing the way prefab is interpreted. Unlike traditional views of prefab as impersonal, cookie-cutter structures, Blu lets home owners choose where walls will go, how many and what kind of rooms the house will have, etc. Yet, they do have seven models for the skeleton of the house which are put together in their factory and then magically unfold onto the foundation on site over the course of a day! These houses have the benefits of prefab (only take a couple months to build instead of a year) but you would never know that they were prefab just by looking at them.

There are dozens more videos online of Blu homes being unfolded, and I'd highly encourage watching them - it's really incredible to see the transformation. It's also worth noting that though it's Boston based and seems to mainly build in California, Blu's third office is right here in Ann Arbor!

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I recently stumbled upon this project by Gary Chang in Hong Kong. The "domestic transformer" speaks to an alternative form of minimal dwelling. While occupying very little space, it doesn't skimp on facilities - Chang's apartment has everything from the basic bedroom, kitchen and bathroom to perks like a home theater. What surprised me most while watching this video however, is how many similar projects are being completed around the world to meet problems of limited space. These architects are pushing the bounds of functionalist, minimalist architecture and truly getting the most out the available space.

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When the Lafayette Building (built in 1923) was demolished in 2009 after falling into disrepair, it left behind an empty lot. The historic building, which was modeled after Burnham's Flatiron building, had meant a lot to the city, causing much public outrage following the decision to tear it down. However, the Compuware Corporation bought the land in 2011 and turned it into an urban garden. Though not an original idea, this transformation brings up questions about the direction the city is going in. To many outsiders, Detroit is seen as a city of the past - past fortune, beautiful old architecture. But the placement of the garden at the intersection of West Lafayette Boulevard and Michigan Ave. is symbolic of what Detroit can reinvent itself as. It is transforming what would otherwise be a barren lot into a center for the community to come together, build and enjoy. Much like the High Line in New York, the Lafayette Garden breathes new life into relics of the old city.

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Buckminster Fuller's dymaxion house is one of my favorite architectural projects as well as an amazing example of functionalism. It was built in 1946 in order to meet the need for affordable, mass-produced housing after the war. The house is pre-fabricated, and is sold as separate parts which must be assembled, and can be disassembled, making the house transportable. Like Corb's idea that a house should be like a motor car, the dymaxion house was to be sold for roughly the same price as a car and could be taken from one location to another, if its occupants ever felt the need to move. It used tension suspension from a central column (as shown in the video), with walls that could turn using this axis. Resultantly, rooms could be made larger or smaller as needed - the bedroom could be made larger if the family needed to fit a crib in there, or could be shrunk so as to make the living room larger when they had a party. Additionally, the house was incredibly sustainable; it was heated and cooled naturally, made its own power and was constructed of permanent, durable materials that did not need maintenance of any kind. These are only a few of the many innovative features of the house, a sample of which is on display at the Ford Museum. 

This video shows how the house was supposed to be assembled. I recommend watching it with the sound off.

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The Villa Savoye's film motif reminded me of the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. The ribbon windows of the Villa Savoye make for a continuous view, both from the inside looking out and vice versa. Rear Window's plot is centered around a man watching his neighbors from his window through to theirs. During the opening credits, the curtains of his window roll up, as curtains do at the beginning of a show. Then, as the first couple minutes of this clip show, the camera moves along the view from the window and into the lives of the people in the surrounding apartments. Thus, as the Villa Savoye illustrates, architecture frames the movie.