Vika Living officially began selling the Vika One models in September this year. "We have several million right now between letters of intent, deposits and contracts in the US alone,
The bathroom has been tucked out of sight, using both a partition wall and bathroom door to provide extra privacy while using the toilet or shower.
Alongside standard packages, Vika Living offers “turn-key packages” that include everything buyers need to begin renting out the units immediately, including bedding, towels, and cookware.
The kitchenette features a cooktop, sink, refrigerator, and plenty of storage options—and all of this fits within the unit when it is folded up, making it simple to unfold and set-up on site.
A small window above the kitchenette allows for natural light and ventilation throughout the interior, while the bright white finishes reflect the light and make the interior feel spacious.
Clever storage has been integrated throughout the home, including shelving and a closet rod behind the partition wall between the bathroom and main living space to keep luggage and other items out of the way.
Vika Living was founded by Jeff Howard and Scott Kervern in 2001. “We recognised a huge gap in the market,” says Howard. “Traditional permanent tiny homes have been around for generations and are generally priced at over $100K and need foundations and permits; while canvas-top products are meant for very short-term stays and are restricted geographically and seasonally. We recognised a middle ground worth about $30 billion a year that draws from both sides of this spectrum.”
Project Name: Portable Prefab Outside Boxes
Website: www.bertandmayspaces.com
A design prototype for a transportable, modular dwelling. The 861 square-foot Assadi's Casa Remota can be constructed in 45 days, transferred to its location in four hours, and installed in only six more. Erected near the Chilean city of Valparaíso, the two-bedroom, two-bath home has floor to ceiling windows to enjoy views of the region’s dramatic coastline.
Photo by Patrick Barta
Manufactured with up to 70 percent recycled steel, the hybrid prefab Graham Residence by Blue Sky Building System limits construction waste to the factory, where it's recycled.
This modular system created by the architects at Resolution: 4 allows them to customize a home’s floor plan by stacking, lining up, and joining factory-built, rectangular modules.
Milwaukee studio Vetter Denk Architects designed this eye-catching prefab on the banks of Moose Lake, Wisconsin, as a weekend retreat.
The home was based on an idea presented by the home's owner, who was inspired by a screw-top jug of $9.99 red wine.
Minim Homes are wrapped in beautiful shiplapped cyprus that will gently age to grey. And a 960-watt solar array on the roof can be battery powered, allowing the home to be completely off-grid if desired.
In a small community with a common garden, FabCab built this prefab home incorporates high-quality materials like Douglas fir to keep the home from feeling clinical, despite its construction in a factory. The architects incorporated universal design features like flooring that wheelchairs can roll over easily and grab bars, making the homes appropriate for aging clients.
Stillwater Dwellings believes that contemporary, architect-designed prefab homes should be more accessible, sustainable, and affordable. The firm has developed a prefabricated building system that streamlines the design and building process, shortens project timelines, and saves clients money.
Named after its rooftop photovoltaic panels, the Solar Studio is the first completed build in NODE’s customizable Trillium Series.
The three townhomes were craned onto the foundation over two days, joined together at the seams, and then finished with siding and utility connections.
"Radical sustainability
Green Modern Kits offers passive kit houses designed by architect David Day. The company is known for building off-grid, single-story modular residences at affordable price points.
Salt Lake City–based Avrame is the U.S. outpost of a popular European A-frame kit home company. Their steeply angled roofs can be equipped with solar panels, making them ideal of off-grid sites. Although the homes aren’t pre-assembled or modular, each kit consists of parts that are pre-cut, drilled, and ready for construction.
Acclaimed for being sustainable, affordable, and adorable, tiny homes are also superb teachers when it comes to organization and design.
At 500 square feet, ICON’s stylish new structure was 3D-printed over the course of several days—but it only took 27 hours of labor to construct. The building will serve as a welcome center at Austin’s new Community First! Village—a 51-acre development that will provide affordable housing to men and women coming out of chronic homelessness. Six new 3D-printed homes will be added to the village by the end of this year—and ICON says that they can be built at significantly less cost than conventional homes.
Brett Zamore calls the house he designed for David Kaplan the Shot-Trot, now the Kit_00 homes, because it fuses two regional housing types, the shotgun and the dogtrot.
The house has two modules: a living space on the left and a utilities, laundry, and outdoor kitchen on the right.
Affordable, adorable, and in many cases, transportable, these tiny homes made a big impact on our readers this year.
Nestled in the hills of the Smoky Mountains and oriented to prioritize views of the Appalachian Trail, this prefab cabin is constructed out of three shipping containers topped with a generous, double-sided overhang that creates two porches. The upper-level shipping container is available for vacation rentals on Airbnb.
Asheville-based Logangate Timber Homes has been designing and producing post-and-beam kit houses for over 50 years. Although the company initially offered more traditional dwellings, they have expanded into a range of contemporary cantilevered homes. Their Harmony 3616 model offers 2,200 square feet spread over two floors topped with a butterfly roof.
The inspiration for this prefabricated, modular family home on Fishers Island, New York, were the views that Tanney and Luntz saw from a 12-foot stepladder, which was balancing on the bed of a pickup truck when they first visited the site.
Based in New York City, Cocoon9 takes a unique approach to prefab homes, offering a line of tiny homes with high-quality construction and finishes, smart technology, energy efficiencies, and versatile spaces that are ready for the modern market.
Headquartered in Walpole, Unity Homes seeks to make high-performance, low-energy homes widely available and more affordable. Throughout the years, the team has streamlined the production process of their prefab customized homes, depending on client needs. They create detailed three-dimensional computer models, which turn into the digital plans for large parts of the dwellings. The plans are then followed closely as the home's components are produced off-site, which reduces as much construction waste as possible.
Haus.me says construction permits and foundations are not needed for the smaller mOne and mTwo units.
In Kansas City, Missouri, a family sought to construct a new home using prefabricated structural insulated panels (SIPS) instead of traditional frame construction. The entire kit house is composed of 4' x 8' sections, and the shell was constructed in about a week. The project’s relatively low cost, quick build time, and highly insulated envelope were positives, but the panels also have their limitations. “Most SIP projects look pretty stupid,” Jamie says. “They haven’t been manipulated by someone who’s thinking creatively.” In this case, Jamie augmented the simple panel system with a dynamic cantilever.
Located two hours north of Boston, the Rocky Brook weeHouse is carved out of the grade of a steep creekside lot.
Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers—a firm with offices in eight cities across the country, including Minneapolis—these prefab cabins were designed off-site before being transported to the park and set atop a series of concrete piers.
Architect Jim Garrison of Brooklyn-based Garrison Architects was asked to design a retreat for visiting families on an idyllic lakeside expanse of land at a boarding school for troubled teens, Star Commonwealth in Albion, Michigan. To drastically reduce academic interruption and cut site noise, Garrison decided early on to create an 1,100-square-foot modular building dubbed Koby, with two bedrooms on opposite sides of the structure and a common dining area in the middle “as a therapeutic space for families to gather and eat together.”
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