#kithaus

Small House Style was featured in the New York Times on September 11, 2008, on page F1 of the New York edition. The article The Next Little Thing? was written by a great reporter named Steven Kurutz. Thanks for the mention Steven! [caption width="435" caption="LITTLE HOUSE ON THE FREEWAY Jay Shafer took his 90-square-foot house on tour this summer, rolling along a Los Angeles highway. image credit: Stephanie Diani for The New York Times"][/caption] Steven's article also features (you guessed it) Jay Shafer and the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and Greg Johnson, a founder of the Small House Society. Jay and Greg took to the road and pulled Jay's small house from Victoria, British Columbia to San Diego this summer to promote small living. Brad Kittel's Tiny Texas Houses were also mentioned in addition to Michael Janzen's Tiny Free House project. Shay Solomon summed it up: “It’s a very exciting moment because it feels like a chapter of American history might be ending, the chapter called ‘Bigger is Better.’ I’m not the Gallup poll, but I hear the same story over and over: We got rid of that big house, and now I have time to see my husband. Before, we used to work all week and then we’d spend the weekend on the house.”

Shay Salomon is a green builder in Tucson, AZ, and the co-author of “Little House on a Small Planet” (Lyons Press, 2006.)

Above photo of Quik House by Adam Kalkin.

I just discovered the amazing prefab Kithaus units on Treehugger and I feel like a kid in a candy store. Well, more like a child in modular Lego Heaven. Imagine being able to quickly add on an extra guest room, a zen escape, a gardening shed, a yoga pod, a jamming space or an artist studio to your existing home? Or in a sustainable pinch, have it be your home?  

My utter fascination with prefabricated homes and sustainable design started during my years at Parsons School of Design. Living in New York City, I was surrounded by water tanks on the rooftops of every building that I peered at. I saw them from my apartment’s fire escape, from my school’s studio windows and from aboard the many flights returning to NYC after my holiday breaks. They were everywhere. 

I had always loved the industrial aesthetic, the lofts of Soho, the art direction of Blade Runner and Brazil and the works of industrial landscape photographers such as Toronto’s Edward Burtynsky. So being intrigued by these water tanks seemed natural. This led to an urban exploration of silos, shipping containers, breaker panels (my Dad’s an Electrician; I had seen them my whole life) and a trip to the Andrée Putman-designed Hotel im Wasserturm in Cologne, Germany. This is a hotel/restaurant magnificently converted from a traditional brick water tower, once the tallest in Europe. As a new design student, I immersed myself in industrial exploration.

At school, I was inspired to somehow recycle and refurbish all of these industrial objects in my design projects, aiming to make them thought-provoking and feasible for everyday use in homes, hotels and restaurants. I didn’t realize at the time that I was embracing the ideas of “sustainable design” or the “reclaiming” of objects and materials and surprisingly, of the many architect professors that I had, not one of them even mentioned the green merits and potential involved in these ideas.

That was in 2002. How far we and eco-media coverage have come in a short six years, with Parsons' parent New School University now doing a great job of actively promoting eco-design via their Sustainability Committee. Furthermore, GreenDesignGirl.com is now proudly syndicated on the Parsons Sustainable Design Review site. Yes, it's an exciting time at the New School these days and I’m sure that their profs would be raving about my converted shipping containers now! Well, maybe not raving… 

During my research for one of the many projects that kept me awake for three days straight, I came across a German architectural company called Graft Lab Design. They blew my mind with their innovative work. They were the first design firm that I had seen take on freight-size shipping containers and modify them for interactive everyday use. In short, they were reconfiguring shipping containers and completely refurbishing the inside of each unit with comfortable padded leather walls, bench seats, tables, sleek shelving units [including a wall-mounted bar!], etc.

In a project for the office of Neue Sentimental Film in Santa Monica, California they created a sophisticated meeting space, within an existing office, using connected modified shipping containers. I thought I had found my design soulmates. Thanks to Graft Lab and my Parsons experiments, my love for sustainable design was born. First in the form of converted shipping containers (with which they've built entire housing communities in The Netherlands) and then on to all kinds of modern prefabricated units. I am prefab fascinated, in case that isn't clear by now. 

What are Graft Lab up to these days? More of the same eco-design goodness that I would expect, but on a much bigger level, as part of Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Nola initiative in New Orleans.

So what was it that prompted this reminiscing of my junior experiments in green design? Ahh yes, the brilliant prefab Kithaus! My ultimate dream studio space. My future prefabulous oasis. A green design girl can dream, can’t she? 

~

Photos below: Graft Lab's design for the Santa Monica offices of Neue Sentimental Films, including photos of the converted shipping containers discussed above. Graft Lab worked with award-winning Production Designer Jan-Peter Flack on this project, who has created videos for the likes of R.E.M., Janet Jackson and Madonna's “Rain”.

The shipping containers used as a meeting space within the vast office.

Inside the shipping container meeting space.

Another view inside the shipping container.

The sleek coffee bar in a closed position. 

The opened wall-mounted coffee bar.

A dramatic central stair case in the main office area.

View of the individual, elevated office spaces.

View of the meeting spaces tucked under the elevated offices.