Jared Levy and Gordon Stott, formerly of Marmol Radziner Prefab, recently launched a new company that hopes to solve the endemic problem of prefab to date: price. They knew how to make beautiful, sustainable prefab. But now, with their patent-pending technology, which allows them to build modules to a whopping 95% complete at the factory, and ship them like shipping containers by rail, sea, or truck, Connect:Homes has figured out how to provide the same level of modern style at an all-inclusive price of $145/sf out of the factory. That’s all inclusive with no surprises. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In a first for the prefab industry, the company will manufacture modern, green, and affordable prefab homes from a single California-based factory and ship these homes to national and international markets using a patent-‐pending modular system. Levy and Stott were instrumental in the design and development of the modern prefab business and worked on the design and manufacture of close to 40,000 sf of some of the most innovative homes ever to come out of a factory, including the first prefab home to be published in Architectural Digest. They became increasingly frustrated with the state of the current prefab marketplace and left to design a modular system that solved longstanding logistical limitations endemic to the modular industry: namely high delivery costs and home affordability.
“Our goal was to give consumers the high quality home that they desired at a prices point that they could afford,” said Jared Levy, Co-Founder of Connect:Homes. “The conventional building process is inefficient and the prefab industry does not currently deliver on its potential.” While the conversation about prefab continues, the main shortcoming for the industry to date has been the inability to deliver prefabricated structures that are better and less expensive than traditional site built alternatives.
All Connect:Homes Series Homes are built to be easily transported, and modules are sized to work with the intermodal network. Connect:Homes is the first prefab company to be able to deliver homes not only by truck but also via rail or ship. These innovations are necessary because standard prefab modules cost about $20,000 to ship cross country and up to $400,000 to ship overseas. Connect:Homes’ patent-‐pending modular system cuts delivery costs by up to 90%, allowing the new company to affordably deliver homes virtually anywhere in the world. System design allows modules to be 90% completed before shipping, far surpassing current industry standards that are closer to 50%. This greatly reduces the amount of time spent on installation and finishes on site, and means the hidden and surprise costs often associated with conventional construction projects are removed from the equation. The predictability of theConnect:Homes system means home buyers can be quoted a simple and all-inclusive price from the outset. All Connect:Homes, which range in size from the Connect:2 to the Connect:8, start at $145/sf delivered, and range to $165/sf installed.
Connect:Homes centralizes the construction process with the goal of eliminating waste entirely. In contrast to the 8,000 pounds of waste generated at a traditional home building site, building in a factory cuts waste by over 75%. Once the homes are delivered to home buyers, Connect:Homes products also offer superior energy efficiency, using less resources and providing significant yearly savings. For example, all homes come standard with LED lighting systems, and all Connect:Homes are designed to attain the points necessary for LEED for Homes Silver certification before factoring in site variables, at which point Gold and Platinum will likely be possible.
“With California’s history of developing innovative housing solutions and the state’s role in pushing green building forward with the development of the new CALgreen building code, it makes perfect sense that a California start-up should be developing the first green prefab house that can be delivered anywhere in the world,” added Stott. “Connect:Homes could make California the leading exporter of green and energy-efficient homes.”
Connect:Homes will be unveiling their prototype home at Dwell on Design June 22-24. Following the show, the pop-up prefab will be on display in Los Angeles for the remainder of the summer and open to the public. For more information on their innovative company, please visit here.
