Prefabricated homes are not often associated with high design, but recently architects have been turning to the modular structures as a cheap and quick way to build environmentally friendly residences. New York City had it’s first great building with modular structures.
Architect Philippe Starck has teamed up with the engineers at Riko to design a set of chic prefab homes that can be suited to your needs. And now Manhattan just got it’s first prefabricated apartment building, made up of 28 units to fit 28 families. The Stack, designed by Peter Gluck, is a seven-story structure in New York City’s Inwood neighborhood.
The individual apartments were assembled in a warehouse and then stacked together on site with a crane. In a video with Co. Design, Gluck explains the benefits to prefab homes—they are less expensive to make and take roughly half the time to construct. After aquiring the site for The Stack 2008, Gluck created a building that would compliment the surrounding architecture without sacrificing its own modern design. “We determined to try and use the property as efficeintly and completely as possible,” he says in the Fast Company video.