To understand the thinking behind
Loblolly House, a groundbreaking 2,200square-foot vacation home on the
Chesapeake Bay, consider the egg. Not just
any egg, but the quasi-tragic case of Humpty
Dumpty. Things started off auspiciously for
Humpty; he had a lofty perch and a natty
suit. But time and gravity had their way,
and eventually Humpty was yesterday’s
country scramble. Sadly, most celebrated
contemporary architecture follows a similar
construction pattern. No matter how beautiful
and well designed a building may be, when it
falls, its parts are usually wasted.
Stephen Kieran, a partner at Philadelphia
architecture firm Kie ran Timberlake, was
inspired by the idea of designing for
disassembly, of creating a home that could
literally be put back together again. “Most
structures are built as if they will never be
removed or relocated,” he explains. “But
the reality of most buildings is that very
few make it to a hundred years. We need to
be responsible for the way they go together
and the way we take them apart.”
Named for the shimmering pines native
to its Maryland–barrier island environs,
Loblolly House was assembled on-site
in less than six weeks. The aluminum
structural frame provides the means to
connect every piece of the house with a
simple bolt, and it can be disassembled
just as easily. “I see this as a critique of the
wastefulness of contemporary construction,
and as a provocation for architects as
builders,” Kieran says.
The news that the Loblolly House
is slated to go into mass production
with Steve Glenn’s LivingHomes prefab
development company represents a great
leap forward in what’s also known as
flatpak housing: modular, eco-friendly
homes aimed at reducing construction
waste. A prefab Loblolly also marks a sea
change in the way architects are tackling
sustainability. As one of the first flatpak
homes to come with thoroughly integrated
circuitry, Loblolly is composed of “smart
cartridges”—floor and ceiling panels >>>
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