Swiss Designer Yves Béhar has partnered with Plant Prefab to create LivingHome YB1, a series of Accessory Dwelling Units to be unveiled at the Summit festival in Los Angeles. Designed to address California’s legislation, the ADU aims to encourage increased urban density while limiting the environmental impact of new construction. LivingHomes YB1 is the first in a line of structures made to rethink prefab and increase accessibility, livability, and sustainability.
Known as Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), these city-based “Tiny Homes” address urban and suburban demand (and rising costs) for housing. ADUs are being recognized as a solution for family members, aging parents, students and people who are starting out. The YB1 is designed from a system Yves developed with LivingHomes to accommodate different roof lines, different sizes, different layouts for windows, various interior requirements and different climatic conditions.
The YB1 can be configured to include a full kitchen, bathroom with a shower, a living room, and a bedroom or office. Appliances, finishes and lighting and electrical in the YB1 can be selected by the owners and all come pre-installed and ready to go. The design is environmentally friendly, using materials like Forest Stewardship Council certified wood siding and cement panels. he construction of prefab ADUs are exceeding environmentally-sensitive and cut down on the impact of construction significantly. The homes are constructed in one month and take one day to install on-site.
Yves Béhar is a designer well-known for his groundbreaking innovations in creating smart solutions to improve everyday life. LivingHomes and Plant Prefab, which are leading the movement in prefabricated buildings in the United States, have been consistent innovators in the field, partnering with industry leaders to create units that are sustainable, technologically advanced, and, first and foremost, livable. Looking forward, the next generation of the units will be standardized and with a lower cost achieved through cutting-edge robotic manufacturing at the Plant fabrication facility, which is backed by Obvious Ventures and Amazon’s Alexa Fund.
Plant Prefab CEO Steve Glenn said, “We are incredibly excited to partner with Yves Béhar on his first home product for a really critical, fast growing segment in housing: ADUs/Tiny Homes. Yves is one of the top designers in the world and the YB1, the first in a line of LivingHomes he’s designed for us, reflects the incredible attention to form and functionality and ecological footprint that he brings to all products he develops.”
“Following our work on efficient living with robotic furniture company ORI, I’m excited to extend the passion for tiny homes and prefab by partnering with LivingHomes. For me, the next frontier of design is to think of the entire home as a product that a homeowner can shape to their needs in terms of size, usage, aesthetic and lifestyle,” said Yves Béhar , founder and CEO of fuseproject. “This is why we’re interested in the customizable nature of prefabricated ADU’s: people want their living environment to be a reflection of their specific life needs. The design goal of the LivingHomes ADU is adding urban density with a range of sizes and home designs while providing a building system that delivers on sustainable and efficient living in urban areas."
Pricing for YB1 is around $280,000. In the future, Yves Béhar aims for the design to be available for less than $100,000.
