Prefabricated Homeshell houses are affordable, sustainable, are delivered within four weeks and can be assembled in 24 hours. Source: Homes & Property UK
The Homeshell house built in the courtyard of the Royal Academy was designed by architects Rogers Stirk Harbour+Partners (RSH+P) and will become the showpiece of Richard Rogers’s Inside Out exhibition currently running at the Academy.
Built by construction company Coxbench, the Homeshell is intended to provide flexible, cheap, sustainable and sharply styled housing. Delivered four weeks after ordering, it comes in flat-pack form on a lorry and is assembled to be waterproof in 24 hours.
Visitors will be able to watch one being built in the RA courtyard.
Homeshell is made of cement-like panels fixed to a sustainable Scandinavian softwood timber frame, and is highly insulated.
In 2007, an earlier version was built in 10 variants at Oxley Woods on the outskirts of Milton Keynes.
More than 100 homes went up and are now extremely popular with their inhabitants.
The big windows set flush to the walls allow plenty of light into the spacious interiors, and the structures are energy-efficient and soundproof.
Newnham council has announced that it is to build 40 Homeshells.
Plans are also afoot to build lots more in association with the YMCA (one of the biggest social housing providers in the UK), using a design called YCube.
These will be so flexible they can be tailored to individual need.
Building affordable and sustainable homes fast could help tackle London’s housing shortage. The two factories currently making Homeshells in the UK can each manufacture 780 a year with only 30 staff.
While these prefab houses are distinctive and innovative, the basic idea is much older. The first prefabs were built in Australia in 1837.
The UK had a prefab boom after the Second World War, to replace swathes of bombed homes. Those simple houses, intended only for a few years, were hugely popular and lasted for decades; some still survive.
In Germany, Huf Haus, and the less-well-known but very innovative company Weber Haus, have been building high-spec sophisticated flat-pack homes since the 1960s. They come on lorries and go up in two days.
Innovative architects such as Richard Rogers have been interested in modular and prefabricated housing for decades.
What is so special about Homeshell is that each house has a similar core, with stairs and utilities. Added on to that is a part with living rooms that can be endlessly varied.
Similarly, the outside look can range from ultra-modern, to traditional. The modules can also form mid or high-rise blocks.
